Older homes tend to fall apart so they just eat up more of the profits.

However the taxes are high and if I house hack my mortgage eats all of the cash flow.

I would say that as long as it's a title company you're comfortable with, and the seller is willing to eat all of the costs, it's probably not a big deal one way or the other.

Why not have your cake and eat it too.

Anything else I'm trying to make pass through - I don't want to eat the cost of the expanded consumables though.

Equity, because it isn't liquid, has only a linear return...unless it is strategically (as in timing) converted to liquid.If a property has negative CF, it is losing an exponential return...not just the face value that is negative...and it is eating into any gains from appreciation.Truth is, one without the other is not good either.

This can very depending on the quality of the home, quality of material, class of renter, whether you accept animals, etc.If this were a decent single-family home rented to families with a dog or two, I would probably stock 20%.

I have been living, eating and sleeping real estate for over a month now.

Commercial is a different animal.   8% seems high.  

My dog policy is the same for both fostering animals and dogs in general.