@Maria JeanetteHere are some of the downsides of putting real estate into a self directed IRA or 401k.No tax deductions: You can’t claim deductions for property taxes, mortgage interest, depreciation, repairs, improvements and other property-related expenses.Property expenses: All expenses, repairs, and maintenance costs must be paid with IRA or 401k funds.

@Celine Li Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

That means if you could get $6,250/mo, have zero repairs, zero maintenance, zero capex, zero vacancy, provide zero lawn/snow/landscaping, pay zero utilities, and pay zero management.

Spoke to a HVAC contractor saying about 7k for HVAC work and 1K for electrician work total 8k but overall may improve tenant experience and maintenance charges to me but bit more price to put upfront

Whether that's for routine maintenance or emergency repairs.

Further, we need to account for a $10k “reserve” for what will be repairs / maintenance as the property ages.  

This frees you to focus on higher-value tasks like growing your portfolio, owner communication, and big-picture strategy.2.Adopt a Portfolio Management Structure: Early on, I ran a departmental structure (separate teams for maintenance, leasing, collections, etc.), and it caused inefficiencies and communication breakdowns.

Most of the homes come with a one or two year warranty so we set it up so that they can communicate with the builder directly to handle maintenance issues.- Taxes are usually much lower the first year. 

Specifically I now track month end account balances, maintenance expenses and have a detailed list at my fingertips of the tenants that are late on their rents.

They had the new company (new property maintenance group in our area I understand) come out and pump it, but with all the melting snow etc it just refilled up (because the form takes 3 days for approval and you can have the electric on.