There where a few unknowns that ate into the potential profit.

Old guy here...It was a tough knuckle busting, very frugal few years, complete with many sleepless nights as rehab costs & interest rates of 18% ate into rents.

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Over the course of a year my wife and I fixed it up, rented to friends, ate peanut butter and jelly, did everything we could.

Not the star of the neighborhood, but clean, attractive and well priced.At first it was hard because they had to put extra fix up money into the place.But eventually that was pretty much over with, but they really didn't have a lot of "Cash Flow" leftover after bills to spend as profits.This is because their lender ate up a lot of the cash flow (with their 3.5% down loan).So James decided he wanted to make a few extra bucks and took a pottery class at the local community college.So he could learn to make pottery, and sit by the roadside on a blanket selling clay pots -- after coming home from his primary job as a Pet Detective.Freida says no to the class, afraid James will run off with some fellow young pot maker in a tight skirt.But James presses on and signs up for the class anyway--determined to make some extra money.Well a couple of days into the class, poor James is killed in a Kiln explosion--completely accidental.Freida was emotionally devastated, but luckily had a large insurance policy on James, which she used to pay off the 4-plex and also buy herself a nice small SFH near a Starbucks.So now Frieda owns the 4-plex all by herself, no bank, no James, and the rents all come to her 100%, and now she is renting out 4 apartments vs 3 as before.In one of the apartments lives a renter family, Bob, his girlfriend Janet and their two little kids Bert and Ernie. 

It really just depends what you feel more comfortable with.We ate considering it.

Over the course of a year my wife and I fixed it up, rented to friends, ate peanut butter and jelly, did everything we could.

And we ate it all up with shovels.

Anything that had even a smudge of equity left in it was ate up by 10 offers all well over asking.

I ended up using a HELOC to buy the second house hack, which ate into my profits.