My lease says that the tenant must keep the utilities connected at all times.

Consider all your buying closing costs, holding costs (utilities, insurance, property maintenance, taxes), and the selling costs.

Maybe just a three month extension.

I worked extensively with a big time REI guy here in Tucson and was very hot and heavy to buy my first home but have decided to hold off while the values keep slipping in our area.I still have a very strong interest in securing some properties domestically in the next year or two, specifically income producing properties.Beyond that I am always open to any extra streams of income (legitimate ones) so hopefully I can find some info here on markets I may not have investigated yet.

The utilities are not split (so they are currently included in the rent), but once a tenant moves out we plan to split them and make the tenants pay them.We plan to offer $25,000 and assume we can negotiate to $28,000.Using Mike's 50% operating expenses, that leaves $500 for NOI.

Thats $11,000 at best, in holding costs and that doesn't include any utilities, trash dumpster, etc."

I ask because I've worked extensively with remote properties, and even hand's on managers often-times aren't doing enough for their clients.

The tenant moved out and owes me for last month and a half rent plus utilities.

Also contact an appraiser and inform them of you intentions to purchase and ask it they will provide you with a desk review or approximate market value in exchange for consideration of utilizing their future services.

For example, you completely ommitted advertising, management (even if you do it), maintenance (even if you do it), legal expenses, evictions, setout fees, damage done by tenants (in excess of the security deposit), entity maintenance, utilities paid by the owner during rehabs and vacancies, capital expenses (although not technically an operating expense), lawsuits, etc, etc, etc (I could go on and on and on).The good thing is that you're at break even, so this is not a disaster.