Run the math and see what you think.

@Ed Lopez Many good points in this thread.A few things I was thinking about when reading your posts:1) At $500/month in rent with annual turns it is going to be nearly impossible for the cash-flow math to ever work.

I mean, it's simple math, right. 

dont over think this its not that complicated. important issues are.1. cost of capital2. knowing what a deal is or is not.3. good reno crew or contractor  4. good agent that will tell you straight what its worth when done and what level you should rehab to.5. a market that is actually moving napkin math works  trying to drill down to decimal points does not.

Of ourse there is a cult following for some of these programs who swear by it, but again, its simple math and show the numbers. 

Simple math, right?

The hearing still took 30 minutes and he wanted to really concentrate on the accidental water charge, that we refunded and wanted to go into the math discrepancies, which amounted to about 40 dollars.  

Plus I'm in a very HCOL so the math for short term rentals would not work out.  

Role-playing.     . you paid $300k 10 years ago, it’s worth $660k, (so when you sell you net $600k to make math easy.)and your cpa determined that you owned zero land, so it’s all depreciatable. you owe 15% on the $300k gain plus 25% tax on $109k depreciation recapture, so you owe $70k in federal taxes, then California reaches out for another $30k?  

Sorry my math was incorrect.