Personally, I bought a 3 bed single family home soon after starting my job and had two friends from college rent which covered my mortgage plus a little extra.

Another note on construction cost, going vertical is very expensive now and would require have a great connect with a developer and a builder in the area.See what rents are in the area and run the numbers to ensure the rents will cover your costs and give you a solid return—using the 1% rule can help.

@Tom Nagy There are a number of existing forum threads covering the challenges RAD Diversified has faced with a number of investor's personal accounts of their own experiences.

Living in one side and renting out the other will help cover your mortgage, and after a year, you can move out and keep both units as rentals.

I would recommend finding a way to continue to practice in some capacity, at the very least to cover living expenses.

Taylor sent multiple email inquiries to our insurance provider asking what risks their policy covered.

You need to log everything to protect yourself from any liability.Going back to your initial question--price is subjective.

It also depends on the subject property. 

This is because they're much more expensive than other countries in the region and, unlike in some other countries in the region Costa Rica doesn't have the mass tourism needed to get you the rental income that would justify those prices.This being said, it shouldn't be hard for you to break even though since all you'd need to do for that is cover your costs.

If I use a RMLO service I assume they cover the Dodd Frank and other consumer rules?