Think of it this way: if we were to screen tenants on criminal background, credit, eviction history, landlord references, and income (3X that of rent and employee verified), even with 25 tenant applications, it's difficult to find a reliable tenant to match all those criteria.

@Ivana Ivanovic I would say 8% is low to cover both vacancy AND repairs.If you expect to incur just one month of rent lost every 12 months, you'd be looking at an 8.33% (1/12 of gross annual income) vacancy rate.And, even for a brand-new build, you're going to have some repair/maintenance costs as long as you've got human tenants.

Next...are Maintenace calls handled by your hourly employees or are do they 3rd party this out? 

I have 9 employees in the US and 3 overseas.

I have a handyman that I pay the equivalent of 3% of monthly gross, and I use Buildium pro to self-manage my 14 units.

If you are self-employed with no full-time employees, you can set up a Solo 401k through a 401k provider which allows for investing in real estate.

I believe in practice it does not actually offset the capital gains but reduces my taxable income dollar for dollar with the loss, as long as my Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) is under $150K.

I owned multis in residential zones where people have home based businesses, successful, then hired employees.

It does not matter where in the country you are, or what anyone tells you, if a residential GC has been in business for more than 10 years their gross markup is 50-100%.

Thanks in advanceHey Donnie, Every property manager takes a certain percentage of your monthly gross rent.