With current interest rates, and they are at least 1% higher with potentially additional points for non owner occupied property, it is hard to find properties that will allow for positive cash flow after paying the mortgage, if you are looking for money for the down payment from a private lender, those are normally at higher than market and I am not sure it would be possible to pay it off.... please remember you need to take into account that you may not have a tenant for a certain amount of time, a tenant may stop paying rent, or you will have a big ticket item to fix, so I would wait if I were you and save to have enough for the down payment and closing costs and perhaps some money set aside for repairs. you also want to make sure that you have your own emergency fund outside of the money needed for the investment property because life happens ....

How do you usually approach unexpected repairs or big-ticket items?

A PMC cannot risk a ticket or lawsuit because an owner takes too long to approve an emergency.You do have the right to be frustrated that you weren't informed about the repair as it was being done.Suggest you discuss with your PMC and see what they say. 

I’ve opened a ticket, so let’s see how that turns out!

The owner also needs to save for big ticket items that may need to be replaced every 10 or 20 years such as AC, hot water heater, furnace, roof.  

Can't wait to book my wife and my tickets, our son is based in Italy with the Navy.Wrap this post up. 

.- Tenant takes care of most of the fixes and repairs for the property, except for large ticket items that should have been taken care of before the tenant occupied the property.

I would try to buy properties starting at a specific date so not large ticket items come up.

Cash flow is possible, but it also is not necessary to retire off of RE.Good luck and I wish you the bestI fill out a spreadsheet w/ the bigger ticket items - roof, siding, AC (this one has a mini split), hot water heater, flooring.

It sounds like a good opportunity and I want to pull the trigger but I wanted to get some reviews since the program is a high ticket of $15K I couldn't find much online about this program or Brian Grimes.