It's not a sound way of doing business, especially if you hire some random VA to call for you in an area they know nothing about.Agents should always be building their sphere and creating warm inbound marketing from social media, events, and meetups instead of doing spray and pray.

My wife and I are in Stillwater and have house hacked for a number of years as well as flipped and own mixed use buildings in Western Wi.

Quote from @Jeffrey Bourque: Hello All, I am new and this is my first attempt at purchasing a property with the intent to create monthly cash flow.The property: Triplex Listed at $140,000 - Total monthly rent income $2,150 - Tenants want to stay and are all willing to sign new leases for 3 years - 8 beds 5 baths and 3,500sqft livable space on a 4,800sqft lot - Heat and electric paid by tenants and water trash paid by owner $180 month - I have managed to talk the selling price down to $105,000 with a kick of $10,000 for closing and commissions so $115,000 all in - Building is in fairly good shape according to pictures and questions but have not done a inspection yet - some general maintenance repairs are needed according to the seller but nothing that seems to bother the tenants. - Taxes are on the higher side at $6,000 yearMy Numbers: $115,000 putting 20% of my money $23,000 and finance the rest with total expense of $1,834Monthly expense numbers: Future Maintenance 13% $273 - Vacancy 5% $105 - Property Insurance 5% $105 - Property Taxes 23% $500 - Property management 10% $215 - Office/Travel/Legal 4% $84 - Mortgage 26% $552 - Monthly Cash Flow - $316 per month or $3,792 per year so Cash on Cash = 17%I think this looks like it is a deal worth doing and I also believe I can bump the total rent up by $50 each tenant which I think make it even better.

Valuing your time and understanding your limits and skills will make a big difference in the equity you build, the quality of the work and your sanity. 

While I was running my inspection business, trying to build a real estate business, and taking care of 4 rentals with family, I was also going to night school to get a degree in MIS.

The buildings were still usable.  

Non-investors focused networking groups are also a great way start building your team in the area.

Relationship Building: How will you get to know the borrower?

It is challenging to build an underwriting box for something that fell outside an underwriting box.

I think new builds don't really work from an ROI standpoint, but if you can find properties that have easy ADU conversions then the value might be there.I'm in MA and we just made ADUs legal by right, so I'm looking into the best ways to add value using them.