Cash flow and appreciation.In general, even leveraged cash-flow property can not outperform S&P in total return because their appreciation  for 16 years is so low in term of absolute dollar (due to R&M).While leveraged appreciated market could outperform S&P in many ways, in gross it's similar to be having 15% CD in environment where yield=2% One could simulate this using ZHI.Property that can beat S&P is always always expensive top tier homes price 300K in 2009-2010 and appreciates more than 20% IRR from that time.Once IRR is below 10%, S&P would perform better because its appreciate 7-8% annually ( even better if one absent not to particpate during the bad times).

@Katie Pratt will be having a meetup soon in Oakland.

Unless you're entire portfolio is in bad area's, you should not be having problems and expenses with the whole portfolio at one time.

May be have him finish the portion of the upgrades you already paid for and get a another contractor for the rest of the work.

Have you interviewed local property managers to see what a fair rental amount should be ?  Have

Behave like that they dont value the time and effort it took to find the .money for them

First, this is a discussion you should be having with your CPA.You might look into cost segregation.

He has trained his children well, they are well behaved, and gracious. 

Their possible illegal status should motivate them to behave themselves to avoid being deported.

I simply hate wasting my time with potential tenants who have zero chance of renting my home and the first logical step seems to be have them fill out an application and prescreening them.