Mainly, it's a tough area that doesn't have a ton going for it inherently.

Your amount of effort is dictated by how effective of an operator you are, and is not inherent to the business.

Plugging some numbers in here's what I'm thinking about:House is less than a block from CU's campus. 2 blocks from Pearl Street.

Hence people investing with these online firms need to know that they are taking platform risk, in addition to risks inherent in the deals themselves. 

My landlord is in her 90's ( only heir is her son in his 70's poor health) and she's considering selling me the property.

My answer is no for a duplex (or anything 4 units and under), and here's why:Having a solid, clean, long-term tenant in smaller properties is actually worth more to you than the potential $100/mo extra rent you may or may not be able to get because of the vacancy and unit turning  (in larger buildings 24+ units, vacancy and turning units is just an inevitability that is built into the underwriting, but in quads and smaller, vacancy and unit turning can blow up all your profits)In the 7 years that she has lived there, there could have been instead new tenants moving in every year, likely driving ~1mo of vacancy every time new tenants came on board (need to time turn the unit, get the new tenant in order, etc...many people think they can do all this in under a month but it's just not true)...so that's 7yrs*$700 vacancy=$4900The less clean tenants who would have taken her place would have driven ~$800 unit turns each time they moved out (unless you do all the painting and cleaning and all that garbage yourself)...so that's 7yrs*$800 per turn=$5600So in her time there, there could have been $10,500 in rent lost to vacancy+the cost to turn the unit, as opposed to $8,400 potential additional rent  (and you will have had a lot less headaches too if you keep the good clean tenant instead of chasing higher rents)Just my 2 cents.

I thought I would chime in here.  

Thanks in advance  This has been talked about a lot in here.

My mom has enough equity in her home that she could take out a loan of that amount but at an interest rate around 4.5%. 

I believe Henry Ford said, "Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal."