The end result is - the house often sits empty with no mortgage and/or tax payments made by anyone.

Unfortunately, the one last thing..if it occurs...usually results from good luck.

You can also take a modestly higher rate on your FHA mortgage and use the resulting "lender credit" to offset some of your closing costs, and then not need such a large seller concession.

It has resulted in mixed success.

I would try to sell it if you can recoup your original cost if possible. otherwise you will be losing money and spending time on dealing with tenants on a rental with dubious results when you could be free of that burden (are you expecting major appreciation in the area?

However, about 4-5 years ago I never spent over $500/mo on marketing and I would average 1-2 transactions per month.I am in the process of launching my first campaign since being MIA using the same method and hoping for similar results.

That DTI is the number that has to be 35% or better (some banks I think might go higher).And just to clarify further, your debt payments that are used for that calculation would actually include your student loan payments, house payment, car loans, credit card payment, etc.So all of that totaled up would be matched up against your gross monthly income to calc your dti.

The keys are consistency, tracking results, and tweaking for improved results.

For example, if investors are looking for a return of 10% and recent sales to the net operating income (NOI) for those same sales indicate them same cap rate (of course make sure the NOI does not include real estate taxes as an expense) and real estate taxes in the subject property's location represent 2% of market value the resulting capitalization rate for comparison purposes would be 12%.

Plus quality still doesn't match site built.