Hi William,  When trying to build a good rental portfolio you should follow some basic rules:1.

@Sharon Patterson, any rehab is a "project" and basic project management principles state that there are 3 key interrelated aspects to all projects: time, scope, and cost.

He is basically saying that each loss for each rental home can only be applied to the same home and not use the looses of the entire portfolio. 

It was driving me nuts cause I understood the basic framework but not the details which is what he is going to want know and understand. 

It was inspected as a duplex, and I'd bet it'll be appraised as a duplex as well (basically removing the oven gives the appraiser plausible deniability), which could create value issues and impact your DTI if you need to use rental income to qualify. 

It is like selecting a car, they all basically do the same thing, some have more bells and whistles than others, but will you use all those bells and whistles or are you just looking to get from point A to point B.

I do that with a Vegas prop and we get basically double the rent and its A class so no need for PM. 

I have noticed my problems occur almost exclusively with the smaller/cheaper homes that attract single people or unmarried couples, usually without kids.

I can do all the basic things like lawn maintenance, snow removal, painting etc, and some electrical and plumbing.

I actually built one of these when I was a kid.