When I closed on my first property in New York State, we reimbursed the sellers for every dollar of what they'd paid toward utilities at the closing table. 

I ruled out some of the cities and towns where BP investors seem to be flocking to, because it gets cold in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and that means broken water pipes, accidents, leaks, and especially the neighborhoods these $50k and $60k houses are in.

The apartment has a hot water baseboard heater above it but there are no signs of water stains or drips. 

The roof was done a few years ago. new water heater in remodeled unit.

If your investors are willing to do work and bring money, then both of you can bring money and effort to the table and split it 50/50 (that’s what my brother and I have done on our partnership).

Now, figure replacing a water heater, replacing carpet, replacing an AC unit, whatever can go wrong with a house eventually will.

. $200 a month, multiplied by 12 months = $2,400 $2,400 multiplied by 4 years = $9,600We can use the $9,600 to buy another duplex once she graduates and makes income again.The goal is to use duplex income to pay off all of her student loans.Our deal analysis is just like how BP teaches:Cash flow has to be >$200 a unit after ALL expenses and Cash on Cash return has to be >12%Expenses-Principal & Interest-Property Taxes-PMI-Home Insurance-Water/Sewer-Garbage-Vacancy 5%-12%-Repairs & Maintenance 5%-10%-Capital Expenditures 5%-1-%-Management fees 0% (I will manage all of our properties now & moving forward)We are 3 weeks in on the Duplex search in New Haven we are learning QUICK that cash flow and a FHA loan do NOT get along.

I'm testing the waters with crowd funding now too, trying to find an alternate place to deploy idle capital in what I consider to be an expensive real estate and stock market. 

I think the most entertaining negotiation I've had was an investor looking for a regular sale of one of their rental properties and I ended up doing a round table negotiation with them to identify terms of the sale (my partner and I did this nice presentation with charts and graphs and stuff and they liked it a lot).

We finished the basement, added a second bathroom, new AC, new water heater, garden work among other things.