I'm not knowledgable on the Jersey area but most townhouses are managed by a HOA with some hefty fees that eat into cash flow.

However - when your lease expires or the tenant moves out after 12 months - the cost to get the property rent ready is avg $1 or 1.50$ per sqft (900 sqft unit) or something I provided in example below- so that is around $1000 to $1500 in rent ready expense. so literally I am only making $1500 on a unit in TN. also I forgot to mention - add in couple of maintenance calls @ $100 each (labor+parts) which will eat up your income further down. so on the paper I made only $1200/year cash flow on one of the units. not trying to discourage but no one gave me this detail picture(dollar to dollar) when I started out.

In NC, we have subterranean termites, which come out of the ground, create tubes, and crawl up wood structures, eating them along the way.

I recommend the e-myth by Michael Gerber, 10x by Grant Cardone ,sell or be sold by Grant Cardone, eat the frog brian tracy

Even a city or muni that doesn't have any rules limiting STRs today could easily put in place rules tomorrow - if the only way you can cashflow is with an STR, you are putting a lot of eggs in one basket.

Those old guys new what they were doing back then just don’t eat it and breathe it in

@Damaso Bautista if we're talking eating beans and rice over steak dinners then I'm already there!

The reason is that inventory is low and capital gains also will eat part of your $1.25Million.

Most STR guests eat out in my experience.

Reason being that you’re 100% fully leveraged on a house and it will seriously eat at cash flow or make you negative.