Instead, it's more practical to find the investments that don't appear to be doing direct harm.BUT... it is funny that you ask this because something incredibly close to my ideal did just pop up recently and I find myself having to really hold the line on evaluating the opportunity on a financial basis when the concept behind them is so attractive!

There's probably more that goes into this, but these are the ones that popped into my head. 

I didn't do this so I popped around from flipping to small rentals to wholesaling to private lending and (now) to syndicating large apartment buildings.

Mom & pop owned places are the best for this. 

But I realize that this is still at a "mom and pop" level not big enough to hire a staff, dedicated maintenance team, etc. but big enough that I know I want to grow, quit my full time job and dedicate more of my time to my investment business.

I went through a couple of rounds of layoffs soon after I moved in (the little-known "personal computer bubble" of the early 1980s had popped).

Most of the time I don't think about it, the rent automatically shows up in my account, but everyso often something costing $500-$1000 pops out of the blue. 

Hi Kristin, when I run my numbers I personally start from the ARV and work my way back, in this part of the year I try to go conservative on my ARV and then even take 5-10% off that just to ensure the deal still works, then I run my rehab numbers, add an additional 5-10% on that just to ensure a buffer in the event something unexpected pops up (it will) and THEN I will find my acquisition price, ultimately I want to be ALL IN at about 75-80% of the ARV.

Most are mom and pop operations, where the owners live on site, act as managers, and scrape out a living.

With that issue popping up I shopped around and got a lower rate from Quicken.