Quote from @Erick Pena: A "good" rental property is one that covers all expenses (mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, property management fees, and any other costs) and still leave a surplus (commonly referred to as cash flow).Calculate cash flow as: Cash Flow = Rental Income − Operating Expenses − DebtThere's much more to it, but that's the basic idea.

Well if you ran realistic conservative numbers for maintenance, capex, vacancy rates, rental income, etc then you don't really need cash flow do you?

Happy New Year, everyone!
Getting right to the purpose of my post, with all the relevant context: I’m 52 and living near Seattle. I have a good FT job in education administration, but I want to retire asap, focusing ...

QB really is not made well for landlords and landlords leave QB every day for better software, payment processing is really expensive, and with QB there's no tenant portal for your tenants to schedule payments or push maintenance requests. 

What property management software or tools would you recommend for tracking rent payments, leases, and maintenance requests?

We have a solid inventory of newer properties that will have low maintenance for many years.

If your estimated rent from a property pays off the Mortgage + Maintenance + Property Tax + Insurance.

Looking for something with low acquisition cost, and meets or exceeds the 1% rule.  

If you can’t do a 1031 to a non-income tax state, figure out a year when you will have lower income and tax rates ar as low as possible.

., Smyrna, Decatur, Marietta), new construction or turnkey rentals for lower maintenance, or small multifamily properties for stability.