This is before any capex - so obviously scale is key in the market like this.My goal was to buy three in MS for every one in Utah - allowing me to balance cash flow and appreciation equally through the two locations.Have a great realtor / prop management team there and feel great about them and my relationship with them.I just read about the declining population in Jackson, it being one of the fastest declining in the nation.

If it's important to you to have limited risk and you don't care much about scale, then pay cash.

A single-family home can work too, but it won’t generate as much income to support scaling.

Some investors I know are stacking up personal lines of credit or business credit cards as emergency buffers, just to stay nimble.Personally, I’m focusing more on staying liquid than aggressively scaling right now.

So far, we’ve been acquiring small rental properties (mostly owner-financed deals) to rent to Section 8 tenants, generating consistent monthly cash flow.We’re following a simple but powerful model:👉 Buy small units cheap👉 Rent to reliable tenants through the HCV program👉 Scale unit by unit using limited capitalNow I’m preparing to scale into multifamily (8–20 units) and eventually into larger complexes (40+ units).

This can be a great way to scale your RE portfolio and find properties with better potential for appreciation and cash flow using those tax dollars. 

Are you leaning more toward scaling again or keeping it lean and optimized? 

I can also tell you that the people who do this to scale don't necessarily use a GC. 

With low cash flow, how does this hold you back from scaling?

Two Reasons: First, because 50M people in this country either work gig jobs or are illegal immigrants, when they lose their jobs or have their hours scaled back, it doesn't show up on official unemployment stats.