Let’s do the math: I’ve given them $250.00 in five years, oh yea, I put new carpet in the living room because it was old when they moved in – maybe $400.00 (installed).They in return have paid me a couple of late charges and in addition $54,000.00 in rent alone.All on a house we paid $45,000.00 for 9 years ago.

Hey @Matthew SuttonHaving managed contracting firms before, the biggest piece of advice I can give you is: do your homework.

By the end of 27.5 years using your example, the math comes out the same (to your point that I'm claiming what I paid, 90k in this example), just that I'm using up most of it within the first 5 years, until I roll new expenses back into it.

Unless you are willing to put 20% of a purchase price in the bank at 0% interest, do the math assuming %100 financing, even if you end up putting in a down payment.So, you can use whatever set of assumptions you want to decide to purchase.

Doing your homework and gathering as much data as possible can help minimize the errors in ones calculations.

jennifer, jon threw out a lof of numbers and calculations there..it can be confusing..if you have questions, def. feel free to ask..i think i read your an accountant, so maybe the math will not be a problem for you...quick fyi, condos are a pain for rentals..and hoa's are as well..many will not allow you to even rent out your condo, or they put a limit on the amount in the community

So I sat down, wrote an algorithm and software with an engineer and now the tool runs so smoothly we have a VA overseas do the reports on every deal in-house.This is helpful for our acquisitions team because the homeowners are always appreciative that we did our "homework" before we called them.Now we don't chance down Realtors and call our sellers back 3 days later.

Have you done your math for cost difference for repair to fill in?

My back-of-the-envelope math gives me in the range of a $30K all-in rent-ready price.

I'm pretty good at math so I've come up with the number of 50.5% do pay some income tax.