My brother in law told me a few years ago that I was the luckiest sob he had ever known but it took me 33 years of living below my means and working hard to buy enough rentals to retire with the same standard of living that we were used to.

It is standard practice and component level depreciation is encouraged by the IRS.Though it is very important to track you time as you go along.

They are a new international lender in Costa Rica that offers cash out refis.

International rentals are cheaper too to purchase. 

@Adam OrtizRecommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

It would make more sense to build with concrete or block and have tile or metal roofs than standard stick built with asphalt shingles .

A detailed system for each project level and payment plan for work that gets done to proper standards should show the contractor that you mean business.I believe I'd follow the system described by one of the contributors to this discussion, Tom Shallcross a few days ago.

I am not making any conclusions just doubting, as previously mentioned, if a 30 year conventional mortgage (nonconforming, but standardized within the banks operations somewhat), necessarily excludes renting it out. 

@Maegan Quaife, Of the 4 prongs of the Internal Rate of return 2 of them are very high for you - cash flow and amortization of the loan. 

@Martti Eckert here's the big issue that no one really talks about that you hopefully find helpful (this is copy & pasted):-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?