I've gone so far as to leave tenants with lots of spare filters so it would only take them 30-60 seconds of work and it still didn't get done.  

They managed to cut all the drain lines and any empty pipe that was in the basement and some rebar and spare plumbing pipe that was down there but did not disable any of the systems. 

Recently I bought my first house and I had a spare bedroom.

Hi, you can have some fun in your spare time playing with your financial calculator instead of the Xbox (LOL) Look at different present values adjusting the two other variables, term and rate, then look at the future values and change up rates and length of time.

Older vintage product which would be C and D buildings being by the beach most likely in an A to B location were built on more expansive lots as land was more readily available.In most area land is now at a premium so things are much more compact and tighter.If you have a bunch of land next to the beach you might have a re-development play in the future.7.5% CAP rate on that vintage of a building is pretty weak.Most with that vintage want a 9 to 10% return.To drop almost 133,000 into a property for an annual 5,000 return if everything goes perfect is crazy in my mind.With that much money you should be able to leverage yourself into a much larger project.Given the age of those buildings when you re-model you will have to conform to the new EPA lead certification rules and procedures which run the costs up.What about deferred CAPEX??

We basically used whatever spare cash we could scrape up and put it towards the property.

I currently work a full time job and have been investing this past yr in my spare time.

We work 40 plus hours a week and plan to do REI in our spare time - which probably will determine what niche we do.

we got into an LLC by the repetition of advice heard from seminar world... n our legal n tax recommended it for holding rentals. pre2007 housing market "correction" ;) we were actively seeking multi fam apt 120+ units class c in Houston n Dallas. after becoming proficient n familiar in our target areas the market turned n we were spared the hard knocks tuition of that market correction. however, that said, we were categorically in commercial AND rental rates post 2007 shot up...so maybe we missed an opp?

all this to say, I would have been really stressed out if I didn't have some spare cash to cover those lean months.All in all, it did turn out to be a great investment (it actually is a cash cow now) - but it definitely took some time before it generated as much income as I had planned.