Others noted that the appreciation play could make it worth keeping, I tend to look more heavily on appreciation since real estate investing is more of a long term game.

A good one will also have skin in the game and will even be able to bring new acquisitions to your attention.

Cash flow is a sucker's game.

Excel is your friend as is your favorite 10B-II emulator app or even the 10B-II financial calculator itself!

Buying with cash is much better in my opinion.Especially for our market.Most investors only use leverage because they "can".There is usually no strategy behind using the leverage.Our price points are so low that most investors just prefer to buy with cash.The price of one of our properties is pretty much a downpayment for any other property in other markets that aren't in the Midwest.Cash deals always offer a much higher return than leverage.Leverage is a risky game for beginners.Learn what you are doing first before borrowing money.Just my opinion for a path that has proved to work for me and our investors.Thanks and happy holidays.

Somehow I think it's better to hold onto my own money and keep that dry powder on the sidelines waiting to get into the game if there are some emergency expenditures (haha, very likely with the kinds of deals I'm thinking about in class C neighborhoods).

But from my limited time in the game, I’ve found that my complete lemons are cash cows a few years later as market rent comes up well and my cap ex fixes a few years ago have paid off.

I don’t mind having skin in the game either, but I know using private money is key to scaling one day and would like to get some experience with it now, even if it doesn’t fund a majority of the deal. 

These systems are becoming more sophisticated and (my favorite) capable, leading to improved user experiences and potentially freeing up human employees to handle more complex tasks and interactions.

So I require skin in the game (average is 5% to 15%) to offset this.