You're not going to cashflow on a water front property and you may have issues with seasonality and/or demand in a very tourist-driven area.If you have an idea of where you'd like to invest and what the numbers might look like, a good way to test the waters is to put an ad on craigslist showing a potential property with the rent you'd expect to get and see what kind of interest it gets.For my rentals in Louisville, over the past 6 years I've had anywhere from 2-3 emails a week to 30+ emails per day depending on the location, rental rate and time of year.

For a quick answer, I think typically they require you to season your rentals for about six months and the percentage is generally 70 to 80%.

I would think you would only do calculations based on what you plan to do to the house, but I am curious what others thinkI haven't had to worry about this yet, because my properties thus far are relatively low end homes.

Great insight as I'm licensed and deal with low priced homes with high cash flow.

Eg they borrow at 4% and receive say 7% giving them a profit of 3% for no money down but a little time for the loan app plus the risk associated with repaying the loan if it goes belly up - though with 20% of my cash down the risk is low for them.  

Presumably, your Airbnb rates would need to be a pro-rata daily rate based on the prior rent, which would probably be too low to be worthwhile for a periodic rental.  

Probably used him 3-4 times, and this was a referral. 1 closing we had, he didn't catch the tax rate was too low, and we had to pay the city out of pocket.

Those yearly expenses seem low.

Hello,I wanted to run a current investment I'm considering by the seasoned investors here on BP, and get some feedback.Location:My partner and I just looked at a townhome right outside the Loop yesterday.

I am using the following numbers:Vacancies - low in my area so I'm using 8%Repairs  - 5% of rental incomeCapital Expenditures - 5% of rental income + 1% for every decade over 20 yrs property age (i.e. 7% for a 40 year old house)Management - 12%  (expecting 10% + 1 mo per new tenant)So this adds up to at least 30% of my income.