We have had a one or two instances where we had an unexpected major repair that ate up a chunk of our profits for the year but when factoring in the tax advantages, etc. we still have made out okay.

@Craig Moore Hey man, in the same boat as you to a tee. 23 in NE area looking for 1st property to invest in, "house-hack".

My wife was not huge on the idea of buying rental property...we talked about it for quite a while, and now 1 year into it, she is just about as ate up as I am, and she is actually handling almost all of the work.    

I am actually taking my test in a few weeks (I took on a large remodel that ate all of my free time).

be "hyper local" - find the SOLD comps (not the ones listed; you can list it for whatever you'd like).I have seen some who set it a tad higher than the competition trying to set a new comp. when I say setting a new comp, I mean by $2500-$5000 (homes typically sold in the $130-$160k range).but what happens is this guy's houses sometimes sit for a while - once I saw for a year.he set a new comp but his holding costs ate into his profit - and he couldn't get his $ out, lowering the yearly return.

In my understanding it is a good enough deal to close on it and take my time selling it ate a "close to retail" price, though I am not opposed to wholesale it if the opportunity comes.I'll be using hard money but the closes I've found is 80% of the purchase price.

I had to leave that place because the rats ate a hole in the walls and we couldn't stay there. 

Most profit was ate right up.

Our locale just didn't work so other areas become necessarywe intended to 'self-manage' so it had to be withing driving range.we opted for a location where we had friends, as they had information we could use and perhaps get help with the property (ie team building)reapplying the first point, we started looking for 'good areas' in town.we excluded all class-c properties (research A,B,C property classes)as we were using a 1031 exchange, we were under some time pressure and elected to offer AS-IS.we ate a bit of 'deferred maintenance' but the cash flow has been great for ustoday (18yrs later) the property fmv(full market value) exceeds 2x our purchase price.While that process was ongoing, we read up on Fair Housing Regulation - - what we could and could not say/do regarding the application process and managing tenants.We looked at/downloaded many lease agreements to see and learn how others were protecting their interests.Lastly, we found tools for screening tenants, verifying employment and income, and how to perform background, credit checks.So - - that was our learning curve. 

Holding costs and higher taxes ate away at all the profit.