The new depreciation would first offset the $20,000 of recapture then the remaining $10,000 would offset some of the capital gain from the previous sale leaving you with $40,000 of gain.

Long story short, not only did I commit the rookie mistake of paying for the remaining work in advance to the sum of $2.2k of which the work was never finished and no refund provided because of a sob story I won’t delve into.This gentleman was a foreigner who was legal and had a social security card for working purposes.

I have a fair understanding of what makes a solid investment but I'd like to understand on a more detailed level how properties are chosen and managed so they remain profitable.

That impacts the cash flow directly even though they are personal, they exist because of the property and the money was used on the property, so they are part of the monthly costs of the property.3 - Is the current loan the balance remaining or what the loan was at the start? 

Remaining mortgage is about $290k. 

They work on volume.Now, with all that said, the fact the large investors are working in the Metroplex is a great indication they expect the rental market to remain robust.  

You likely have to put down 25%, so your remaining 175K can only be leveraged into 583K which is less than keeping it in a traditional retirement vehicle.Also in practice it gets challenging to finance properties after the 4th or 5th property.  

Purchase a home for myself, and use the remaining money to invest?

It's my opinion that expecting rents (cash flow) to remain the same or grow is only slightly more conservative than expecting property values to remain the same or grow.Just some food for thought.

Funny how she had my number earlier today but not a couple of hours ago.So my question is this, she is going to break the one year lease she signed in October, and is expecting her security deposit back; actually the remaining security deposit as she wants to use the "rent" for January out of her deposit.