3) Lastly, if anyone could speak to the annual maintenance costs for swamp coolers I would greatly appreciate it.  

The purchase price is $750k.Gross Annual Rent is: $91,800Expenses include:  Property Taxes $6,300 Property Insurance $6,000 Water / Sewer / Trash $7,200 Advertising $0 Live in Manager Free Rent $8,400 5% Repairs / Reserves $4,590 5% Vacancy $4,590 Total $37,080 As you can see above, there is a live-in manage who takes care of everything from painting, re-tenanting, collecting rent, etc.

As a hypothetical, stripping out everything else;- Annual Potential Income $250,000- Annual Unrecoverable Delinquency @ 1% = $2,500. - Over 10 years, the delinquency balance would grow to $25,000Assuming you achieve and maintain 100% occupancy (don't we all wish :) in the 11th year, your income on the P & L will show only $225,000Is this the correct way for delinquency income to be handled?

I shop around annually and find even the same companies can change significantly in a year.

This particular article had written requests from 18 state associations to reprint in their own newsletters at the time it appeared, so they must have felt it had value for their members.It is too bad you were not at the recent Annual Meeting in Virginia Beach of the Virginia Manufactured and Modular Housing Association where I was the featured speaker.

If you had done this over the last 5 years, you would be "paying" about 11% annual interest by losing the market gain that the 401k would have achieved.If you had done this recently - even worse:Say you took loan last March. 

Hi AndrewThat's a tough one because tax rates seem to vary from state to state.I'll give you a quick example: Salt Lake City, Utah $300,000 home with an annual tax amount of $2,500.Detroit, Michigan $35,000 home with a $2,500 annual tax rate.Pontiac, Michigan ( different county that Detroit but only 20 miles north of it) $35,000 home with a tax rate of $700 annually.In the midwest and west I see an NOI of under 6%, in C grade neighborhoods.Select areas on the east coast and surrounding region I see NOI's of 9% to 15% in C grade neighborhoods.Property Taxes are the same whether the home is held personally or in an llc.I hope this helps, please feel free to send me any Specific questions and I'd be glad to answer them.Good Luck.

I have an initial goal of attaining $3,000 per month ($36k annually) in income derived from real estate investments in order to supplement my full-time job.To kickstart this post, I thought I'd ask some questions to the community that I've been pondering over the course of my real estate education:First, market timing: I have the sense that the Dallas market has been on the upswing for the past several years, accelerating even more rapidly since the announcement of several major companies (including Toyota) moving to Plano.  

@Scott RaleyEvery week I analyze every single 2-4 unit property on the market from Placer County all the way down to Merced, and run all the numbers like 1% Test, CoC Return, Gross Annual Yield, etc.

This is an event that I would like to see happen again next year and hope it becomes an annual event.