Are you ready to jump in and buy the distressed properties then and hold on for a recovery to sell in better times.

Anything above the allowances came out of the tenant's pocket.I defer to the other posts above regarding how to figure cost impact and cost recovery as a landlord as I was never privy to that information.

Ask all of those ex-athletes who made millions but were not able to keep it.

So people are doing clear cut, but the recovery time is very long and the small stuff doesn't bring that much money either. 

During the last real estate crash I lost about 200K in real estate equity, fortunately I had it to lose, and was able to invest in foreclosed properties near the bottom of the market and more than made up for the loss during the recovery.

So, I am still waiting for a tremendous recovery, and I think our condo is actually in great operational shape, but these foreclosures still are hurting us.

I was considering mid west, somewhere slower to any recovery.  

Instead of running GE for the Stockholders, he is running GE for the Democrats, which is why Obama appointed him as a member of President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

With the market recovery, it seems most of the properties in my area aren't likely to cash flow, but I believe I may have found a few houses even further away from Houston (in the "exurbs", should not be considered "suburbs" given distance from downtown) which may meet my requirements.

since I do a lot of community work up here and have been for many years, I would suggest first going down and getting involved with local recovery efforts.