But the deal is still horrible. most accounting would have this as no return as there is no cash flow while recovering a negative equity position.  

I would by real estate in cities that have seen large negative decreases in sales prices but are still positioned for population growth.2.

if your PITI is $3000 and your rents are $3200 (just making up numbers) you are going to be significantly negative every month, especially with the HELOC. 

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

It is still a great market if you can line up some of those negatives better especially the purchase price and regulations. 

Just as a heads up as not sure which timeframe of BP podcasts, but before covid you could do a BRRRR and get all your money back out of the deal, today that is typically not the case and you will still have money in the deal - so just wanted to mention that.Lastly, you are way ahead of me and many others already as I cannot swing a hammer :) In my market I believe I can still potentially extract all investment, but after the high LTV REFI, it would have very significant negative cash flow which was not the case for BRRRRs where refi completed prior to 2022. 

I'm in the "Airbnb has this one figured out camp" with @Kevin Lefeuvre but I hadn't thought of the damage waiver concept @Valerie Rogers is doing, that's interesting! 

Typically what @Samuel Diouf suggested will not work, unless you also include a significant and successful value add, for a few reasons 1) debt to income requirements likely will provide a means to get a loan on a 2nd property.   2) saving 5% for OO down in Orange County on MF likely means at least $50k with closing costs.   3) the home if purchased rent ready off mls will still be cash flow negative after a year (and 2 years, 3 years, … at some point it will have positive cash flow but I would not expect it in less than 3 years on rent ready property.  

Before getting into real estate, I dabbled in Information Technology where the concept of open source software runs strong.

In fact, across the board, out of town investors are buying at *negative returns* which is making it absolutely impossible for savvy, educated investors to even get their foots in the door.