They described how horrible it became watching the families they shared the buildings with, filling kiddie pools, having water balloon fights and hearing their water run non-stop for bathes and showers.Their neighbors had no incentive to keep the water bill down because they always had some poor stooge, working long hours, never around, who had to foot their bill.And believe me at least one of them tried to reason with the nitwit landlord... but to no avail. 

In the end those HFH homes should have some sort of restriction on title that sends them back to the pool for low income housing to be used again.

Not to mention, your target group, be it retail customer or investor will be from a very limited pool.

(Pool and Tennis just don't pay like they used to anymore)My friends and co-workers play the stock market, but I just couldn't get into buying stocks and mutual funds the same way I took an interest in REI and owning something tangible.I'm most interested in Buying/Improving/Renting SFH and Multifamilies in the Central NC area.

I've never had a problem getting a good tenant pool doing it this way.

Usually on bigger deals, in my experience, private money is pooled together for the equity side in a syndixation (usually a 75/25 split more or less).

I have a pool of tenants inquiring to rent and one of them is a 71 yr old senior citizen.

If there is a negative perception that reduces the pool of buyers, reducing the number of potential buyers reduces value.

Because I can't keep paying 1800.00 on a home that is about 80k underwater and have a damaged pool, foundation issues, roofing and other repairs.

If that is a path you decide to take then I would not even collect a security deposit to begin with, why limit your tenant pool if you are not going to utilize the deposit as intended anyway?