I am NET cash flowing just over 1k (includes maintenance, repairs, cap-ex, vacancies, utilities), which is pretty good considering this is in SoCal.

The materials used for rehab werent up to his standards.

I talked to a modular home company in my area, and he said to build a 4 / 2.5 2200 square foot home would be 215k, and then foundation and utilities would be another 160k.

Did you have taxable income that could’ve been reduced utilizing tax strategies?

Utilize tools like BiggerPockets for resources and calculators, and consider creating a simple spreadsheet to track property details, budgets, and timelines.

The benefit of old homes imo is that I go in and redo all of the systems and have basically a brand new house that I know was done right bc I oversaw everything.Most new homes are built with cheaper materials than the homes built in 1900.

Now purchasing a home with cash is always good b/c obviously cash is king but also I think the part you might've missed is that, the money your utilizing on these home's won't actually be yours, but the banks or whatever institution you used to fix the home or make its value worth more.

As noted above, up to 50% of gross rental income normally gets eaten up by expenses (taxes, management fees, utilities, landscaping, repairs, capex, etc).

Utilizing the VA loan is a good first step in terms of investing.

As brokers, we all have a duty to "discover and disclose" material facts.