Had to pay thousands of dollars to settle utilities, because they don't shut it off after 1 month of non-payment like it would make sense to do - tenant was overdue by over a year for utilities.

You must be paying cash or putting a lot down for the return to make sense...

I currently have 2 properties and was wondering if it make sense to refinance and try to get another property.

Point being that not all improvements make sense from a return point of view or the time its would take to make them cost efficient will have a negative impact on your overall return.

Finding a new tenant long term would make sense if the market supports a high quality tenant and you want to manage but you dont seem to want to.

Since its my first deal I fear buying at the wrong time, though I know if the numbers make sense then that would take away most of the risk.I have a real estate investment book (by David Lindahl) that describes there being a various amount of phases: sellers market, sellers market stage two, buyers market stage one & two.

If you only want to buy one property and sit on it for a while, then your strategy "could" make sense.

Then after talking to them and getting a better sense of their plight, I caved and signed a 6 month lease and sent the other qualified tenants away.

For each “con” to this niche, I see an offsetting “pro”.I hope the above makes sense.

That alone gets my spidey senses tingling, because how could she be offering owner financing when she doesn't even own the house outright?