seriously guys, look into cheaper ways to buy. using the funds from a re-fi from one house to buy more than one new house is growth. growth is what you want to do. make your money work as hard for you as you can. finding houses that are dirt cheap is the answer. there are several ways to buy real estate that are nonconventional. several years ago, the federal government restricted the number of foreclosures a bank can put back onto the market. consequently, that forced the banks to hold onto the less than desireable foreclosures and market only the best that they have. that added to the carrying costs of the remaining houses that they could not market. finally, they had to make a decision; hold onto those houses until they could market them, or dump them in light of loosing the carrying costs. most banks chose the latter. so, now, you have thousands of houses that the banks just dumped back to the previous owners by filing a release of lein with the counties that they are in. legally, you have a house that the bank no longer has a claim on, and the previous owners either do not know they own it again or they don't want it. there is potential for a hell of a deal.i bought one for $2000 on a tuesday and sold it for $10,000 on thursday. i also bought one for $2250 and picked up the back taxes for $4000. that one i am holding onto to rehab and will be worth $50k when i am done. tax sales are a great place to pick up extraordinary deals too. your problem is NOT on your cash end, its on your buying end

I end up with forced appreciation in an already strong appreciation market as well as strong cash-flow.

I am a 34 year old Air Force veteran (2W0) and am currently residing in upstate NY near FT Drum.My REI goals are: short-term -> Learn as much as possible and close on first deal by the end of the year mid-term -> $10k/mo positive cash flow within 10 years long-term -> Maintain a sustainable growth investment portfolioMy preferred strategy is SFR/MFR Buy and Hold.I look forward to learning more from each of you as time goes on and hopefully will be able to glean enough to start successfully investing in the near future.

I have an ever growing list of data points that suggest investing at least $5,000/unit in rehab costs is a great way to drive value and force appreciation that would more than pay for itself within 12-24 months.

Oil is still weak, Boomers are retiring debt and Millennial buyers are not out in force yet.  

@Mike RoyEven if the norm in your area is for the landlord to carry the heat as suggested by @Michael Noto, that is most likely only as a result of the building stock being either conversions from SFRs or built in the era when central boilers were the norm.You did not mention whether the central heat is hydronic or forced air.  

This is a set of observations on creating an optimal strategy for 'forced appreciation.'1.  

When you only have a few units in another market you are forced to hire a PM and being so small, you are not their priority.  

Banks does not like to do short sales and foreclosure, yet they are forced to , Why.  

I did do some force appreciation on the 1st and will be raising the rent when the current tenants vacate or if they decide to stay.