My view is probably a fallacy as I have not factored in closing costs, home repairs, and the down payment into the equation.

Deduct NEW property taxes after you buyDeduct home insurance costsDeduct maintenance percentage, typically 10%Deduct vacancy+tenant nonperformance percentage(we recommend 5% for Class A, 10% Class B, 20% Class C, good luck with Class D)Deduct whatever dollar/percentage of cashflow you wantNow, what you have left over is the amount for debt service.Enter it into a mortgage calculator, with current interest rate for an investment property, to determine your maximum mortgage amount.Divide the mortgage amount by either 75% or 80%, depending on the required down payment percentage - this is your tentative price to offer.If the property needs repairs, you'll want to deduct 110%-120% of the estimated repairs from this amount.Be sure to also research the ARV and make sure it's 10-20% higher than your tentative purchase price.As long as the ARV checks out, this is the purchase price to offer.It is probably significantly below the asking price.

The last thing you want is a brand that will take 2 weeks to get repaired if needed.We have Maytag units in our lake house and they have been rock steady for 7 years.

Also, prioritize repairs over aesthetics if anything structural or foundational needs attention.

It was also difficult to assess the heating situation after repairs since tenant refused to provide key to access unit for repairs and/emergencies, citing “privacy and safety” concerns.

From everything I hear the costs exponentially grow when a PM hires out your repairs/maintenance compared to the cost of you source the work yourself.

This is because they didn’t budget properly and rent wasn’t high enough to cover actual expenses (repairs and maintenance, cap ex, vacancy and loss, tenant damage and turnovers, etc don’t expect to have any money left over after all of these expenses are accounted for if the rent is less than $1,500/month). 

Add in property manager, repairs/maintenance, CapEx, vacancy etc and you will be deep in the red.

I was wondering what's everyone's process when maintenance or repairs needs to be performed in the rental property.

if you ever have a major repair, or an eviction, or a major turnover, you may need to be a little more 'active.'