Instead they just wanted us to power wash walkways, and paint hallways instead!

Originally posted by @Westin Hudnall:@Kristen WilliamsI have a property coming available Jan 15th out West at Maize and Kellogg. 10878 W Dora.3 bed 3 bath fully remodeled with main floor laundry. 1900 sq ft , granite kitchen , stainless appliances , etc for $1499/month.Let me know if you have anyone interested I do, actually!

So its kind of a wash.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of some of the projects that we had to do to it.replace water main from the street to the housereplace all water lines in the housetear out all carpetPaint the interior (will be painting the exterior or residing in the spring)put in new laminate/vinyl floors throughout the houserepair dishwasher and oveninstall gutters on back of house and fix some water damaged areas of the wallreplace some of the rotted subfloor in the bathroom/laundry roomrepair the furnacereplace back doorchange door knobs and locksvarious other small repairs… patch holes, outlet covers, etc…Purchase price = $12,500Closing Costs = $1050Rehab (still an estimate, but it's close) = $13,500Total Cost = about $27,050Rent = $750/moHere are some before pics 

That may mean properties that need some work, that need new tenants, increased rents, or even finding new creative ways of increasing cash flow i.e. adding laundry machines, charging for storage space, vending machines etc.If you are looking for a turn key rental property it's going to be difficult to find things at a discount unless you can find a motivated landlord.Finding good deals is going to be difficult on the MLS you need to try other strategies...i.e. driving for dollars, direct mail, networking, searching the eviction records, auctions, etc.

Since then, rents have definitely increased, but so have the property values, so I'm guessing it's still a wash. 

So all the properties wash out to roughly the same profitability.Note that I don't want to purchase properties that require any rehab first, because all that does is increase my investment, decrease my leverage, and therefore decrease my cash-on-cash and ROI.SO NOW I CONSIDER OTHER FINANCING.  

Yes you put money in pre-tax and pay back with after tax funds, but the money you take out is pre-tax so it ends up being a wash.

Was he told to by someone?

As I write this El Nino is doing his best to wash us out of the Santa Cruz Mountains.