Heck, I used to go to lowes and home depot in the am.

The commissions aren’t nearly as much in leasing as selling, but if you lowed them, no one would show your house.  

Could someone please help me understand why the ROI is so low?

Once all the updates are done, maintaining the rental should have low overheard for years. and I would show about a $3000 cash flow a year. 

The next time some non-landlord posts in this forum about how bad low-income -housing fixer slumlords should feel for taking advantage of our C/D-class tenants, I'm going to try not to jump down their throat, but no promises. 

The issue is that I am receiving a lot of low ball offers, where agents say "you will make 100k on it anyway", as opposed to what I can really make (200k).

So far all of our low end purchases such as these have been cash.

The major one is, they have low paid inexperienced agents. 

Stay out of debt (completely out of debt)Get your degree (While on active duty it's free and you don't touch your GI bill) Buy low cost index fundsBuy some high risk stocksSave save save save saveRead every real estate book you can get your hands onPlay it out over 20 years.

Maybe buy the home, sit on it, by living in it or renting it, and let Prop 13 keep my taxes low until death inheritance to my kids.