In 2015 I tried to do the Dave Ramsey trick and live on little and avoid debt by rehabbing my second home with little resources.

At some point maybe another 10 years there will be some older beat up homes to BRRRR or flip I expect.Plano can have some opportunity...but often tough to make numbers work.I think one trick too is finding the right rent/price ratio in some of these cities....typically what works best is smaller homes that are lower in price where you can still get good rent numbers...

The trick is to be one of the most desireable units at your price point.  

If it's just a cash transaction, there's no trick to it.

The stupid lease flow doesn't allow us to accept only good funds for 1st month's rent and security deposit, and instead seemed designed to trick tenants into paying with a credit card (the worst for us).

If you get a ton of showings and no offers, you're close to the right price point, a slight reduction will usually do the trick. 

But your dream is to ride confidently without any help, maybe even do tricks!

High occupancy is easy if you are charging next to nothing and letting anybody and everybody come thru, the trick with STR's is getting that good combination of occupancy rate to maximum possible ADR (average date rate) so that you not only maximize your revenue but get quality guests coming thru your property.

So literally even if the rate is 10%, since I do house hacking, the rate has no impact for me since I am positive cashflowing from primary.The trick is I need to find older house, with very large lot, was not easy but finally we got it.

Does anyone have any out of the box tricks to seller carry the down payment and lenders that would allow it?