Not a horrible investment... but let's just say his description of his listing (which had not previously visited) and my assessment were pretty far apart.

Bridget I would try to get out of that contract quick.If it's the area I am thinking of it is a war zone.I looked in the city of Atlanta for awhile.Mostly old homes with high taxes in horrible areas.Some of the streets are called "gun alley drive" - not joking.When I drove these areas during the day I had a few people in the car and locked the doors,didn't slow down,and didn't exit the vehicle.It's pretty bad when you see police avoid driving in certain areas.Not saying this is where your property is at but I would be shocked if it was in a good area.These properties even with rehabbing the exterior mechanicals will be stolen again within the week.A key is how many homes are vacant on that street and is the area transitioning down or up in its cycle as far as crime and revitalization.I don't like the older homes in Atlanta.They sit on small lots so the land is not valuable.They have very high taxes with some at 3,000 or more a year based on inflated assesments from years ago.The properties are also very old in age.Many of these properties had lipstick put on them for flips years ago for fraud.Now with these old properties you will be eaten alive in costs with possible lead paint,galvanized pipes,asbestos,foundation issues,radon,mold,etc.

Oddly, the owner paid to have a brand new fence put in not long ago because the old one was in horrible condition, but basically no other work has been done on the property and there is no attempt to rent/sell it.

Its a horrible way to generate immediate, short term cash.

Yes, the owners can get denied based on their financials.Your offer can get denied.It sounds like this one is just laying there, or either there is horrible communication to you.

That would have been the smarter choice and I probably wouldn't have had such a horrible experience with random realtors and learned a lot more sooner than later.

I love reading the comments below the article.... all talking about how horrible and risky it is to own a rental....    

The only option I know of was to print the screen that confirmed the order, but it is horribly designed and spews out 3-4 pages of junk because of the way the menu structure and page layout is coded. 

I spoke to some of the tenants and the property management company is horrible apparently.  

And $1350/mo for a $170k house doesn't seem like a horrible rent to value ratio.