Meaning, the STR method hasn't been tested yet. 

And let's say that nobody is willing to bid above $100K, so the bank gets the house back.While it may be true that the bank's purchase price of $100K wasn't a very good deal (as Rich pointed out, the bank "overpaid" for it at $100K), that doesn't mean that investors won't have the option of picking the house up as an REO for much less than $100K.In fact, the bank will probably list the house on the MLS at between $70-100K (given the scenario above), and if there are no takers, the price could easily drop by another 50% or more.So, while investors had no opportunity to pick up the house for less than $100K at the foreclosure auction (which wouldn't have been a good deal), they very well may get an opportunity to purchase that same house as an REO for $50K or less.And buying REOs is *much* easier and less time intensive than buying at auction (in my opinion and experience)...

If this is a road you want to go down, you'll need to become familiar with meth testing, meth levels, and what the laws are regarding renting and selling properties that have various levels of meth contamination.

They can just divert the intensity and motivation to buy to an underpriced or fairly priced property -- if there is actually inventory.But if you are in a market with few or scarce inventory, and rates are unusually low, and you have to buy, some will overpay. 

The 50% rule a good smell test, but the age of the properties, the differed maintenance, the utility break down, rent amount, etc will all change the percentage of expenses on income. 

My business partner and I (both freshly passed the UT agent test) will need work work under the supervision of a Broker per state rules, but will have a fully independent company aside from working under the broker on paper. 

So far we have used it mostly for Tenant Management, and still use a tenant screening component that the our local landlords association offers, and do accounting in Sage/Peachtree which is what we use for our 'day job' business for over 20 years.We plan on testing and probably moving to Rentec's options for both of those functions by the beginning of the new year.

Test all the outlets and find out which ones are off, and mark them.

I need to order this part (that takes forever to get here) and test it out.... and they'll do that.

Do both and test which works best.