As soon as you make additional payments beyond loan interest (i.e. loan repayment, capital expenditures) then there is no guarantee you will have positive cashflow.So the quick rules of thumb for guaranteed positive cash flow are:cap rate is greater than interest rate (you've got this)the difference between cap rate and interest rate should be large enough to produce cashflow to cover loan repayment/amortization and capital expenditure plus some amount left over for the investor.if you're in a deal where you're financing with interest-only loan payment and there is no capital expenditures, then YES cap rate being higher than interest rate would very likely produce positive cash flow.Cheers...

Just enough to avoid  PMI, which is a total waste at $75/mo per $100k borrowed.If I could find stable assets like you mention that are 1.5% producers I'd buy as many as possible at today's resi rates.

That run of 500 would cost me $1500+ But let's say $20 an hour...it costs more than $100 in addition to the supplies to produce 500 pieces.

Two of the safe harbors that can help you deduct improvements are below:1) 2500 de minimis safe harbor.the safe harbor applies to amounts paid during the tax year to acquire or produce what the regs call a “unit of property” (UOP), you must meet these requirements: (1)you need to have written accounting procedures treating as an expense for non-tax purposes amounts paid for property costing less than a specified dollar amount (which will be 2500 for you), or with an economic useful life of 12 months or less;.(2) the taxpayer treats the amount paid for the property as an expense on its books and records in accordance with its accounting procedures. ( do this on your bookkeeping software or whatever you utilize)(3) the amount paid for the UOP doesn't exceed $2,500. as substantiated by the invoiceNote: The cost for the Unit of Property includes l additional costs (for example, delivery fees, installation services, or similar costs) if these additional costs are included on the same invoice with the property.2) Small taxpayer safe harbor: To be eligible for the safe harbor, the total amount of improvements for the property for the tax year may not exceed the lesser of $10,000 or2% of the property's unadjusted basis.If the total amount paid exceeds the safe harbor threshold, the safe harbor does not apply to any amounts spent during the tax year.

I have a full-time job that pays well, so I am focusing on properties that will produce passive income.

@Bruce RunnIn short what I took from what you said is you try and run rehabs together to have crews available to you consistently, but time completions/sales so you don't produce too high of income in one year putting you in a higher tax bracket

I live on the north side of Chicago with my wife and son.I've been diving into strategies around innovative short-term rental investing (airbnb, VRBO) and trying to investigate whether a lease-ro-STR model can work in Chicago. 

PPS: There is a search function on the FilePlace page (not the contract sub page) and searching for "lease" or "agreement" produces a number of state-specific results.

The 30 year note should produce more cash flow each month and you may want more cash in your pocket to save for your next purchase.

Basically just to have a property that produces some income and also gives me the ability to set aside some days if I want to go hang out downtown.