That said, what do you feel makes them so difficult and what do you think would make them easier?

We do use a property manager for some that are too far right now for us to deal with, but they take almost as much time and effort as the ones that I self-manage, so I'll take those over when I have the time to build the proper systems there and have time to screen the tenants myself.If I found secure investments that could substitute for the income from our rentals without the hassle of dealing with tenants, I would consider it, but it's difficult in this low-rate environment.  

I understand how difficult the in-state vs. out of state decision can be, so no worries there.  

I guess I should ignore these comments, but it is difficult, makes you second guess yourself.

I don't understand why it's so difficult to remove a colleague on BP.  

IRR is far superior in its ability to account for leverage and the motions you have to go through to calculate it force you to have a deeper understanding of how the the money flows through a property.However, the biggest problem with IRR when looking at Real Estate is that so much of the estimated return is based on your exit valuation, which depending on what sort of real estate you are involved in, can be absurdly difficult to calculate.The important thing isn't to decide which metric is better than others, it's the ability to separate out your revenue, expenses and cashflow to see where all money goes.  

Market timing is a difficult game whether it's real estate or the stock market, and everyone has their own idea. 

Besides this one post which just so happened to come up at the same time this old thread was restarted,  it is very difficult to find any success stories. https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/376... 

If you decide to sell, then it is difficult to sell to a family even if they don't have kids they may be planning.

I have found they are not difficult to get a verbal payoff from like a bank may be.