Until Detroit gets good leadership, has money to hire 4x the police force and crime decrease for about 5-8 consecutive years, its a speculative investment. 

As that ration decreases the investor's knowledge must increase.

If you do elect sub-chapter S, then your profits will be split between a salary and distributions - distributions are not subject to self-employment taxes and therefore decrease your self-employment tax liability. 

I have no facts to back this up, just a rumour that I saw on BP and elsewhere.Until there are some sustained movements showing a vacancy decrease in downtown commercial office space I wouldn't risk it, but that is just my tolerance level. 

Also, I don't know if you factored this in but getting a mortgage on your homes will significantly decrease your cash flow, not to say you shouldn't do it.

@Dave Ostrofski read your landlord tenant laws but decreasing rent proportionate to the unusable space could be supported by your local landlord tenant law, if you are saying it is a major loss of use. 

One way or another, the investors must work to pay down loans, increase rents and decrease expenses wherever possible.

I’m looking to house hack with an FHA loan to decrease my living expenses and get my foot in the door with real estate investing.

This number decreases the longer I stay in a market because I'm generating more leads and closing deals off of follow-up.You can replace cold calling with SMS, direct mail, SEO, Facebook ads, etc.

Will work on decreasing overall expenses by addressing repairs and maintenance while stabilizing the property in the first few months.