I was interested in something like owning a rental property as a way to generate some additional income. 

Kudos to you for doing something to create a secondary income stream. there are 5 income streams in RE rentals, possibly six if you do things a certain way.The reality here is your model (buy box) is suffering from too high an entry and too high a cost of capital.

Renting part of the home after conversion provides additional income and deductions.This post does not create a CPA-Client relationship.

The house I will get is in a lower income area, currently worth $95-100k, and she still owes about $25k on it.

You have come to the right place to explore different ways to generate passive income.

  :)  Thank you in advance.Jarrod  I ended up doing a STR under 7 days to offset my W2 income. 

Income approach Also known as the rental income approach, this method estimates the market value by analyzing the property's anticipated future income and converting it to a present value estimate.

While that kind of income is not a deterring factor, when I looked over the terms of service many big red flags came up.

My recommendation would be different if you were a high-income earner or if you wanted steady equity growth.

.: Quote from @Jay Hinrichs: having been a back room vendor for Montelongo  Vertucci  rich dad poor dad.I got to interact with hundreds of students.. its like anything RE related only a little worse than say RE agents .. 20% of RE agents make 80s of the income