Purchase price: $275,000 Cash invested: $294,000 Sale price: $355,000 Seller was behind on pay HOA payments and in risk for losing the property.

That will increase your material costs for the job and is the contractor paying for the material in their bid or are you paying for it and paying them a labor cost.

Option 3: Pay large down-payment on modest rent ready house. 

It's pretty common practice to have something like that in a property management agreement, and if it falls under that limit they're going to pay it and not notify the owner except in regular monthly updates because it is below the threshold of what is an ordinary expense in the course of business.

You've got to include loan pay down, appreciation, and depreciation in your return calculations.The point of cash flow is to keep you safe.

They sent a new contract trying to bind me to still pay $200 per month, which I refused to sign.

However, chances of making a mistake or overlooking an opportunity to save are higher when it comes to rentals.The dilemma is whether it's worth paying a professional in this case.

There are people who have an entire business helping you set up and design a STR relatively quickly (3-7 days) depending on size of home and complexity but you are going to be paying a bit of a premium but you do save on the headache.

This is a the perfect vehicle to use for short term like buying a  property with cash, then refinancing the property to pay the line of credit back in full, and use it again.   

I pay $875 (including principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) and rent it out for $1,625.