This quest even started after having realized I have no retirement plan, and my sad 401k is probably not going to cut it.Like many, I'm having an inner battle of investing in CA or out of state (OOS).  

My parents decided to sell and just cut their losses rather than fight the board and deal with them.

LOL... now maybe when the politicos can't get their bottle of Silver Oak or Screaming Eagle they will take note.. but Trump does not abide so he does not care LOL.When I grew up in Cupertino as kids we cut apricots picked cherries etc etc.in Oregon folks my age used to pick berries  Blue  Bosyn black you name it.now get a 16 YO off his smart phone or computer game and put him or her out in the fields..

Yes, with a FHA loan, the CoC return is often going to be pretty solid - you just have to be comfortable with either holding it a little longer (because you'll have no equity when you sell) or confident you can add some value.If you're buying it in your name (since youbare, because it's FHA) then no, you won't be cutting a check from yourself to yourself every month for rent.

Together they make 3k a month and the rent is $950  so that's ok together but separately wouldn't cut it.

That's sort of the cut-and-thrust of my main query.

As she said, if you're looking for big cash flow, Denver probably isn't going to cut it.

No short cuts to success, you need to concentrate on paying off all personal bad debt and live frugally to allow you to save enough for the DB.

They are outliers and lot of people are not cut out for that and are not entrepreneurial.

Jason Hirko well saidI had duplexes that when I bought the tenants all had to cut their own.