If anyone is looking to buy in the Boone, Banner Elk, Sugar Mountain, Beech Mountain, and surrounding areas of North Carolina, reach out to Sarah Long of 828 Real Estate.

I have know some folks to cheat the system, and that boils my blood, but those who are doing the right thing have the Soldier and Sailor Act to fall back on preventing landlords to take advantage of them.

Realtors and contractors are promoting the slumlord experience, eg never investing in the property, and extracting every bit of blood out of the house you possibly can etc.This works well in the short term, but when it's time to dispose of the asset, people will look at your manky horrible windows and knock you for them.But then replacement won't be $6k by that time, they'll be $10k, and the buyer will knock you $15k on the price - because they can.Don't fall into the trap "it's just a rental".

You use $60K of that to pay off the underlying note and pocket the remaining $10K.Still too risky for my blood, but I suppose that might work.

I'm mostly interested in the Sugar Land/southwest Houston area.  

There's a few ways to approach residential cash-flow investing... buy-hold an asset and make spreads over time that slowly build OR jump into a discounted situation and add the value by casting the vision, doing the work/repairs, turning that $2400/mo cash flow into much more and getting rewarded for all your blood/sweat/tears/RISK.

I kept my number very conservative so it wasn't sugar coated.

Real estate investing is in my blood, both my mom and dad were into buy and hold properties - some worked, some didn't.

This reminds me of the saying buy when there's blood in the streets.It has been slim picking.

I read this article and; don't take this the wrong way; I smiled a bit... started thinking.... blood may soon be in the water... how best do I prepare myself.....That being said I am completely new to this REI game and still working on my strategy and criteria.