At the end of the day, it's still cheaper and instead of throwing money out the door each month on rent, I'm owning my office which may not have any equity from paying down principle but will gain equity as the market turns back up again a few years down the road.

Originally posted by "MikeOH":If you own a lot of rentals or even a few over time, your numbers will trend toward the average.First, I absolutely agree that the 50% rule is a valuable tool for doing an initial assessment of a deal...But, that said, the statement above is just plain incorrect.Mike - You'd probably agree that across the hundreds of thousands of SFH investments across the U.S., the average purchase price for those properties is around market value for their location (in fact, you'd probably agree with this almost by definition).

You would need to hold the property for some period, probably a year plus.If you're planing to just turn around and sell this quickly, its either short term capital gains or ordinary income.

also, you would have to pay capital gains tax on that too correct?

So, in essence I suspect these properties are "paying off" via some small cash flow today but your expected gain on sale could be many, many years away.

I have since gained invaluable knowledge of the construction industry working as a General Contractor.

They lowered the asking price significantly to gain interest (after trying to sell by auction).

Predictable.If you are not comfortable with your ability to judge, ask your real estate agent or a real estate agent or other landlords in the area.For your closing costs, your prepaid interest & monthly interest, taxes and insurance are expense against your profits annually the rest are added to your "basis" , the value you use for capital gain or loss when you sell.Hope this helps!

You are really not gaining much except aggravation, because I don't know how much Help-U-Sell actually do for you.

Here are a couple that I've found very valuable.