But I take your point.I'm guessing that the townhome qualifies for the "2 out of 5 year" rule for preferential tax treatment which is one more reason to sell it now.I don't like being a long distance landlord, I sold all of my rentals before I moved 200 miles, so I wouldn't keep it unless you KNOW you might move back and re-occupy it.Your math analysis is correct.

I see a ton of these in the MLS that advertise "Great cash flow" or :cash cow", but when I run a really quick analysis (mortgage payment, closing costs, 30% for expenses and vacancy, and taxes) I get either no cash flow, minimal cash flow, or a loss..

Finally locate the property with margin and a buyer.Good Luck

The analysis should be purely based on hard numbers right?

Webber - I guess I need to just ask this questionWhen a transaction like this goes down... is the final buyer's lender aware of the seller transaction the same day?

Hi there,We have just recently experienced the same things with our pm company, only we have been through two companies so far, and now are finally selling these awful properties.....we have lost $26,000 in 8 months of ownership, about $10K in lost rents and $10K in repairs plus our pm expense.

Final thought, if you buy a house for a rental you are going to get enough in deductions to offset any profit it makes for awhile and get the tax writeoffs available to you and you will actually make a couple hundred a month in cash flow.

I had this passion for RE investor for some time so I finally decided to take the plunge and do foreclosures.Thanks!

One final note that I should have mentioned but did not.

Analysis of the tenant mix with a view to optimising it is an important part of the buying process. 2) Property ZoningSuccess in real estate investment has much to do with land zoning.