I needed a starting point for mortgage rates to do my deal modelling. from your experience, should the interest rates vary much by geography or are they relatively uniform?

You can have 20% cash on cash for 6 years and year 7 the thing could burn to the ground and your insurance company refuse to pay then your tenants sue you.So the result will only be as good as the accuracy of your assumptions permit, but IRR and the like are important tools to model various scenarios and gauge your risk/return using the information you have today and your best guesses for the future..

The arbitrage model is talked about on this forum pretty much every day.

I would contact a few and quiz them on their experience and expertise and see if they are a match for your needs.

Interest expense - when modeling this in, I would take 50% of my interest expense and subtract out of NOI and the remaining interest expense I would be able to model in as a deduction at my marginal tax rate?

Because of Matt's knowledge and expertise I was able to score a gem in a good area in Ohio.

I use to love what you described tough I bought most of my rentals in the day with the exact same model.. until the laws changed in 07 and it was no longer legal to do so.. but again every state is different that's the only reason I bring it up.

Ask them questions to be sure their expertise aligns with your investing strategy.I will try to write some more later, I am running short on time.

If you're using conventional financing you need to document 30% equity in your current primary that you're vacating in order to use 75% of gross rents from the tenant that will be renting your current home.You can document it by ordering an appraisal which is 450-700 dollars with rent survey attachment to the appraisal or you can sometimes do an AVM - automated valuation model which is usually free or a drive by appraisal with some banks which is usually 100-200 dollars.Some banks (portfolio non conventional) will all you to use gross rental income either discounted at 75% of face value or full 100% against your full PITIA (current residence) if you put down 20-25% on the new property.with FHA you can use gross rental income up to 85% of gross against PITIA when looknig to buy a new property assuming your current mortgage is not a FHA loan which you'd then have to adhere to 2nd primary/FHA rules/exceptions.You can see how these general questions on BP get answered so non nonchalantly however the depth of the answer really depends on your goals, your plans, and financing tools in use, and working with someone who actually understands not only the financing semantics and the investing objectives.

@Ian I LeinwandIf you wish to find a tax expert who specializes in real estate, the expertise, knowledge and the quality of service would be far more important than location.