Lots of other people had bad experiences. 

There are some HOA's that are in such bad shape they wont allow any type of loans and it must be a cash purchase.

Sometimes the long term capital gains are palatable and it may make sense for you to pay the tax rather than force a bad deal.

Back home I would make a packet for my appraiser and never had a bad appraisal due to the that I specified the value add and the Reno amount and broke it down so they saw the potential and it always worked.  

Quote from @Edgar Duarte: hi allI would love to get some perspective from your expertise, we have a property that we would have to sell in 2025 to avoid paying taxes on the capital gains, we believe we rcan sell it for $700K and get an equity of almost $500K after paying the mortgage balance, if we invest all of it option in index funds at 7% rate (standard com growth calculator), or in more rental properties as we are all here for, I can get the equity of around $900K.option B would be keep paying the house at 2.3% int rate while we have it in AirBnB and maybe sell it in 10 years for $900K, knowing that we would be paying taxes but it is not that bad still. or we can 1031 at that point?

If you just hire the cheapest or first PMC you speak with and it turns into a bad experience, please don’t assume ALL PMC’s are bad and start trashing PMC’s in general.

You‘re welcome to join my regular meetups in Bad Kreuznach or Wiesbaden.

Is it just a bad rule of thumb for an investment if you can't get positive cash flow for the first year or two?

I know there are bad Contrs out there)2) Also in my experience, the customer should not be involved in picking up materials, ever.

If this is a Class A property in a Class A area, you have the least chance of getting a bad tenant.