See if an investor typically averages thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for their time per hour then if they spend time with you they are not only not making money but losing that return per hour.So if someone spends time with a potential investor and they take 20 hours at 2,000 an hour that costs the experienced investor 40,000 in time.What Is great about Bigger Pockets is you can post when you have some time and then thousands or more can read it at their leisure and learn something without constant direct one on one involvement.

You have to subtract the original $230k you paid out of pocket first...which leaves you with $715k.Now, subtract all the lost income (now negative CF) from the months that you had vacancies, Maint. costs, CAPEX, etc...assuming 15% of rent per year, that's about $15k x 15 years = $180k...which leaves you with $535k in virtual profit.IF we just stopped there, you would have gotten $35k/year return (on average).Now, comes the big money losses.You will be operating at an average loss (and this is real money due to cash out of pocket to pay for expenses not covered from rent due to now negative cash flow)  per year of at least $15k.If you had invested those losses (and since the source would have been liquid this is not a virtual thing) at a measly 5% per year, and reinvested it all every year, you'd be at almost $800k in actual real money.Anytime you accept hard cash losses, you are losing the benefit of your cash being a "verb" instead of a "noun"...and you lose all the compounded profit from you cash being reinvested and in action...forward action.

Nothing can be more frustrating when you lose money on a flip. 

@Braden Taylor, good on you for getting started so early.I'd start with just the quad. 3 properties all at once are a lot to start and you're losing a lot of economies of scale.

Personally, I wouldn't be overly excited about the numbers on this deal, $150 "positive" cash flow before expenses likely means that you'll be losing on this one over time once expenses are taken into the equation.For what it's worth, I would look at this type of transaction to see if I could fill the property with a long-term lease/option resident and possibly get a higher monthly payment (and offset much or all of the maintenance costs on the resident). 

Obviously I don't expect to lose my job but say theoretically if I did I really wouldn't be crippled since my mortgage is covered by my renters.

That said, I’m not willing to lose my shirt on a bad deal just to learn so I think I need to continue exploring both paths: looking for personal deals and deals I could bring to the business (and which I could invest in).

Not only should you lose your license for doing so, but you may be an accomplice to any crimes committed with the information provided.

I am a beginning real estate investor in NY and was recently contacted by an NYC wholesaler proposing to work on a joint venture "wholetail" deal in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

But I've heard investors mention losing millions of net worth overnight  (even the ones who bought at 70% ARV) just because the property comps dropped instantly and they were over-leveraged and were underwater on mortgages.