Also, as Kate mentioned, pre-inspections are also common.Any good inspector should be able to find a few thousand dollars of work.

Can't wait to get settled in and dig into the local real estate market.

A lot of it is what strategy you want to focus on, there are ways to find the distressed owners but you may be willing to wait for someone who will sell in 3 months.

The waiting sucks. 

Wait for the right deal(s) that will cash flow and give you 10-12% cash on cash ROI, then you'll be looking good!

I am very proud of his achievements and can’t wait to see him continue on his journey of wealth building and living a life by design.Here is his deal breakdown: Purchase Price: $255,000Down Payment 5%: $12,750Mortgage Payment: $1,731Rent: $1350 & $1200 (Scott will be occupying the $1,200 unit) Payment Out of Pocket: $381                                                                                 The head of our marketing department is also under contract on his first property.

If we upgraded the units we could get it closer to 10% COC but we would rather wait a few years to do that.

Closing costs are a few hundred dollars more but saving roughly $1,100 by not paying points and keeping thousands in my pocket by not going up to 25% down.

Mortgage pay down is nice, but if the value drops 3-4% per year as people keep fleeing the state, the equity achieved by amortization vanishes rapidly or takes decades to amount to anything significant.I think the OP can do better, or if not, he should find another market with better returns or park the money for awhile and wait for better opportunities.

Simply asking, do I just have to wait and then begin my real estate career?