You can get up to 90% of the purchase price and 100% of the rehab budget.

Still waiting on an estimate from this contractor and meeting with one more this evening. on one hand, if it is in the budget, would it be smarter to lay the nicer things, but then the unknown of a bad renter tearing the house up makes me nervous.

**Financial Management** - Create a budget to manage income and expenses

I currently own a food truck/restaurant and real estate is my next career move.

If you go this route, you'll want to make sure you budget for furnishings.Some folks are venturing down to Pueblo if they want to go the LTR route, but in that case, you may not want to self-manage given the distance.Finally, while it's understandable that you don't want to be losing money every month, don't lose sight of the long term gains from appreciation. 

Here are the numbers, so you can see what I mean.The numbers are the following: 359,900.00 sales price (purchased Dec 2015) 89,975.00 down payment (25%) 10,000.00 closing cost (estimate - I don’t remember the exact figure) 7,000.00 required rehab (estimate - I don’t remember the exact figure) 106,975.00 Cash invested 3,900.00 Rental Income (actual figures) 150.00 Parking Income (actual figures) 4,050.00 Total Inflows (400.00) Utilities (250.00) repair budget (not an actual outflow, yet) (2,200.00) Mortgage (Includes insurance, taxes, and P&I) 1,200.00 Operating Inflows 14,400.00 Yearly inflow 13.46% ROI If I were to use the 50% rule I would have discarded the property. 

The STR rooming house would work, in theory, as a budget option for traveling going through town.

(Note) Max Budget on Skip tracing leads: $300 (ideally)

If you decide to search in the Topeka area, I'd love to visit with you and learn more about your budget and depth of work you may or may not want to take on with a new property. 

Can you stomach going over budget, time delays, and having to pay the mortgage without any income coming in from the property?