If you focus on those and are willing to take risks (risks are why real estate provide higher returns than the stock market), with the knowledge to back up your decision to take the risk, be ready to pull the trigger.Condos/Townhomes are great for hands off maintenance, but terrible as investments.

  $30K in gross annual rents before taxes, insurance, maintenance and vacancy allowance on a $600K asset is probably going to net you less than 2% annual return. 

Please note any unpaid preferred return will be accrued:Senior debtholderRepayment of capital and any accrued returns to meet the 9.0% preferred returnAt sale investors will receive their pro-rata share of 25.0% of the remaining profits

I do have a “safety” stockpile account where I store money for these purposes: taxes, returned security deposits, etc.I have a w-2 job and am having taxes taken out for that.

Where about is it in the market cycle, how are the returns on rental properties, etc.Thanks!

Based on a easy 10% return on equity you can see how your properties are all losing money.

So my mother recently passed and she invested several hundred thousand in a friends business and he was paying her a yearly return at 10%.

Some of those include tax write-offs and increased return on your investment.

But they will still have to file the gift tax return although they will not owe any tax. 

As a car guy and former owner of several muscle cars I can assure you that you’ll get a better return on investment in real estate than in classic cars .