I'll preface this by saying that yes, this is probably unusual, and yes I'm about to rent to friends. 

Could be a special situation like a house that's unusually large for the area or unusually small for the area.

. - Thanks for the recommendation about popmoney.com however looks like they have a 30 day limit of only $5000 and I would need to transfer more than that.I have Billpay setup but again the bank is unusually slow in processing those requests sometimes I have to schedule them a week out.

I always hear it is important to have multiple exit strategies. I am kind of confused by this, because isn't there only 3 exit strategies?1) Rent2) Sell3) Go BankruptWhat other options are there to get rid of a proper...

In regards to 8% being high for commercial, I agree that is the case if you are in a major metropolitan area, however if you are in the smaller towns and city I would say its not unusual.

Rents that low have problem tenants most of the time. 14 1 bed has lots of turnover.Usually best mix is 75% 2 bed and 25% or so 1 bed unless a college student rental town or other unusual circumstances.NO for me but I don't like smaller properties due to scaling issues and buying yourself a job.

Many of the residence in the area are retired and its not unusual to find long term tenants.

A HELOC or 1st/2nd from a local bank or credit union... anything unusual about their circumstance?

Am I missing something or is your case unusual and that is why the rate is so high?

@Adam Abdel-Hafez  not sure how you could have not seen homes needing 11k or more in work after the gently living nice tenants get done with them.. our average rehab on a wholesale house is 15 to 30k.. and these homes are from burnt out landlord syndrome  ( which is happening here)... its unusual at that price point in rent though ... its normally the lower end 600 to 700 rents that command this type of rough living.