The sooner you get each unit producing maximum returns the easier it will be to cover your monthly expenses.

I've never seen it done but I have heard of people who have actually lost their property to a hard money lender, not for being late, but for not paying off the loan completely after just a couple years...and the homes were still producing just fine. 

I would definitely agree with you that self-managing is a great option for some owners, but does require an investor to understand their own skill set and align it with their desires for their asset performance appropriately (If max ROI is desired, do they have the skillset necessary to produce top revenue numbers, etc.?).

It takes time to produce results with direct mail.

But I'd still prefer to do a deal in my area as opposed to a long distance deal - at least for my first one in awhile..Here's what I'm thinking of doing:1) get a regular income producing 9-5 job and be miserable for awhile.

But the average rent in that area for a 1 bedroom apartment is $530 and owners are currently only charging $410 and the average 2 bedroom in that area is $697 and owners are only charging $510, if I purchased the property at the the price of the comps in that area and was able to get the rents to the average it would produce a 16.3% COC return and cash flow $2013 bucks a month!

On the other hand, you can make a healthy profit by pricing your rental just a bit lower than others, especially when breaking into the market.

As you can see from the below metrics, this deal doesn't produce enough income to substain the expenses and mortgage which leads to the negative cashflow (meaning you will be paying the investment each month).

Hello BP family,I'm a real estate investor from the Nashville, TN area focusing on rehabbing, wholesaling, and buying/holding income producing properties in the Chicagoland area.

But you can't bring down that yearly income value simply by saying you only kept X amount of the income produced.