A lot by itself this size in the area could easily go for $60-80k.

Splitting the profits is a hefty sum since you may take a personal loan easily these days at maybe 15%+ APR with an online lender.

Couldn't get to my R.I. one but my MA. one said it should be easily accomplished.

I could see you easily blowing through 20k and never getting a deal.. 

And I usually hear from my tenant once or twice a year, because they are always travelling or busy otherwise...BUT you can only get these tenants easily if the property is in a urban core, very close to LOTS of high paying jobs....I am not familiar with your local market, but if it is NOT a big urban core, you are probably going to hard time finding someone willing to pay $5K in rent.....EXPECT long vacancy

The buyer turned around and put it up on VRBO and easily makes the annual HOA fees through rental income.  

I would ask about RICO and how easily the government can take property used to commit a crime with.

While in Indy, the monthly rent is half of it and you can get tenant out in 3 weeks easily, and this rent amount is not for a low end property, so as long as you do good screening, your chance of eviction is not bigger than CA. 

We're looking at single family homes and estimate we can easily get over $2K/mo.  

Plus, someone with that income can easily afford the median priced home here in Sacramento.Mid-career employees in tech are making an median of roughly of $130-160k, which is more than double the median income for the area.