That is a dollar for dollar return on principal paydown.

I wonder if Mitch was able to get his refi done before a NOD was filed and or late payments were put on the orginal sellers credit report.. this is the real risk to the seller if they value their fico score at all.. on some of this stuff the sellers credit is already trashed and they dont care.. but if folks buy from someone that does care holy cow when they get the NOD notice its right to the attorney.. 

You put a 3.5% down payment on a house that goes up 7% in 12 months you just made a 200% return that didn't take any large amount of skill or time.

One day is not a big deal for a weekend move in, but one day late every month is a problem that may have been created from day one. 

But this was late 90s so way before on line stuff had taken off.

You lose all of the control and these are long term investments - but in my experience the returns match what I had on the active real estate and I am hiring professionals to manage the assets.  

They are able to See a COC return within weeks of the down payment, when the unit rents. 

If the deal is good enough their may be enough returns to pay investors as well as yourself.

We all know 'housing affordability' is one of the hottest political topics as of late but I'm not seeing any commitments to increase inventory. 

Overall it is still a very good city to invest with solid returns.