It generally involves pairing with an equity partner and/or talking the seller into offering a carry back.  

Especially when paired with grey.

The growing popularity of cost segregation, paired with bonus depreciation, can provide large "losses" in year 1.Your carry forward losses will typically be used when a property is sold, assuming you sell for a profit, if not before.In major Texas metros, especially in Austin, it would be quite unusual to find a property that produced more income than expenses + depreciation, at least for the first several years.If you are interested in passive investment in an apartment syndication, PM me and I'd be happy to discuss that with you further.

Congrats on the purchase Cory.My fiance and I bought our first home in September of 2012 and then managed to purchased our first rentals (a pair of duplexes) 11 months later in August of 2013.

If you bought the pair for $120K 3 years ago and can get $150K and they can be problematic, I'd sell and use the money to get a better rental. 

Just got my builders license for Michigan. I am wondering what the benefit of getting my real estate license would be. I ultimately want to build homes to sell for profit (spec homes). I don’t want to be a real estate...

Not only is sales price a limiting factor in this area but if you pair it with the average rent to price ratio being less than to 0.5% it is easy to see why a lot of folks from markets similar to Seattle & San Francisco are forced to look in other markets to get started in REI.

Regarding gaining more experience in my niche, I’m willing to "work shadow" others that are like minded and that have similar goals who need an extra pair of hands, and that are willing to show me the ropes in the process.

One way I might be able to help is that I am part of a program that pairs recent college graduates with tech jobs in Detroit, so I know a lot of people moving to Detroit looking for new places to live.  

This pair was very crafty.