The people that I have seen make rentals work are those who are truly in it for the long haul and are paying cash for properties, or people buying multi-family of which there are not many and are the ones that are tend to be in less desirable areas. 

I would like to be an investor in my immediate area but the typical average single family home is priced around upwards of $700,000.My whole rationale behind joining lies in my desire to have real estate investing as my secondary job.  

I use 13 because when I work that against a less than desirable financing assumption (70LTV @ 6.5% over 20yrs) it gives me a CoC I can live with.  

Anchorage - Matsu valley is my market, but I can run some reports and let you know, at least, what the most desirable markets are right now. 

I usually read everything I can get my hands on, however, being that I have a full time job (at about 60+ hours a week), I have no desire to flip houses... so I didn't read the book on flipping houses.

So it was a highly desirable student rental location.PROS1) higher rental by renting rooms $600/room verse $1650 for the unit.CONS1) first year student tends to be party animals. the whole condo experienced so many false fire alarms; that the fire department started to charge false alarm incidences.( I experienced that in my university years too in the 70's.2) I only rent to female students ( I think it will be easier to have girls together).

For the record, I have no desire whatsoever to hold real estate in my retirement accounts.

We have created and sold lists in other desired market places to meet previous investor's demands.

Give the office all the information that you have to prove the desired rental increase is on par with local rents. 

It just took longer than expected or desired and came with a lot of aggravation which is why I flip in the first place.