After talking with the seller last night she refuses to decrease the price at all.

You also run the risk, granted decreasing as time goes on, that there could be damage in excess of the remaining deposit and they could walk and you are in no better position.Just explicitly state in the lease that the ETF is one month of rent or if you prefer, have it declining over time that the lease has been in place.For an overview from the state of the relevant laws:http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/ca...Two books I found helpful is Leigh Robinson's book http://www.landlording.com and Nolo's Tax Deduction guide for Landlords.

It's a 4plex with one unit being a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom unit (Very large overall).We would be renting a combo of per room, and maybe offer two to a room for a decreased rate.

I balance that with mortgage/insurance costs and throw in some speculation on property values increasing/decreasing and add a pinch of intuition.

Do you go for 100% occupancy and let the 50% rule eat vacancy or do you use a decrease occupancy when you first run the 1% rule?

View interactive map displaying SFR returns in all 375 counties analyzed.Rental yields decrease in 57 percent of marketsMedian sales prices for single family homes rose faster than average fair market rents in 213 of the 375 counties (57 percent), resulting in declining gross annual rental yields in the same percentage of counties.Counties with the declining gross annual rental yields included Los Angeles County, California; Cook County, Illinois, in the Chicago metro area; Maricopa County, Arizona in the Phoenix metro area; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Queens County, New York.MethodologyFor this report, ATTOM Data Solutions looked at all U.S. counties with a population of 100,000 or more and with sufficient home price and rental rate data.

Rents will increase but as they do it's likely the purchasing power of that $24K will decrease.

Agree that it is a solid play, but question short term cashflow.In terms of your long-term plan, keep in mind much of our supply data indicates over-supply in mid 2018, which will result in negative rental annual rates of change throughout 2019 and some of 2020, decreased net-income, etc.

The "challenge" is to identify changes that can increase rents and decrease operating expenses, which will increase cash flow.Aside from operational expenses, you have an opportunity to affect cash flow through how you have your property leveraged.

CHANGES in NOI either increases or decreases the value.