In terms of determining if a property is a decent deal, you might want to look at the potential for rent increases in those areas and compare that to your mortgage payments and expenses.

Ideally, it would be something that not only allows to register all the different expenses related to the property and mortgage, but would include the amortization of the mortgage so you can see on the same spreadsheet how much your equity is growing.Thanks

Make sure you verify all correct numbers for whatever deals you are putting together (arv, projected rents, and projected expenses).

When the portfolio generates above your take home salary from your job after expenses or? 

It was an expensive lesson.

This thread is dedicated to sharing those expensive lessons or mistakes we've encountered in the world of real estate investing.The purpose here isn't to point fingers or bash each other for the decisions we've made.

After expenses, it cashflows me around $350.

One rule helped here (I simplify a lot): you should always count how much money will be left in your pocket after all expenses (including mortgage payments, taxes, fees, utilities, as well as the reserve fund for the current repairs of the property).

As far as a multi, personally if all things were equal I'd go for the multi for a few reasons.  1) Added diversification.. if one tenant doesn't pay, you can still cover property expenses with the other tenants 2) Shared capex... typically, one roof and one property to maintain but multiple streams of income 3) Less vacancy.. usually multi's rent for lower, for example one of mine is the sweet spot of 3 bedrooms for $1300. 

Such an expensive nightmare.