The classic FICO credit score is produced from software developed by Fair Isaac Corporation and is available from the three major credit repositories.

You need to be producing funds from an apartment deal where all of the tenants will be covering your business expenses and your debt payment without you having to come out of your pocket. 

My goal is to never retire from doing what I love to do, which is buy great income producing real estate. 

Rent-wise, comps are about $2500/mo, which is just above break-even, but it's almost 18 years before it will be paid off.From an income tax-perspective, we are in the 24% bracket and both properties at this point mostly offset the principal gains with only ~$250/yr due for our KM condo and ~$100/yr due (estimated) for our Santee condo.Now that I am really attempting to understand these numbers for the first time, I see that we have a ton of equity that is producing zero cash flow.

Obviously banks require you to have some skin in the game but ideally maximum returns will be achieved with as close to 100% financing as possible.A income property that can not produce positive cash flow with 100% financing will always require that the investor buy their cash flow with their own money.

. $1000 rent on a $180K property will never produce true positive cash flow.  

Expenses $20,000, which produce NOI $214,000. 

You'll get a handle on landlording, you'll get a leg up on building wealth and you'll have your first of many income producing properties to achieve your goalBest of luckStephanie

As far as live and flip then rent you need to know if your income will support multiple loans on properties producing market rents in your area, this will have a big impact on the viability of your strategy.

If you are serious about investing and building a great income producing business, this far exceeds a social life early on because you will be able to do and go where you want when you are older.