. - it does take time, maybe I got lucky with this one..I looked at several applicants and spoke with them to really see what's their life schedule consist of and see if they could actually carry out my task.

Also take off 1-1.5% on the front end for closing costs and another 1% for carrying costs. 

@Seth Teel@Greg H. both have excellent points, I would encourage you to scrub through their posts and learn from them

They carried almost nothing in liability.

He originally wanted $90,000 cash all paid at once, but he agreed to an $85,000 purchase price with 25% ($21,250) down with him carrying the financing at a 4% interest rate.  

Even though you cannot apply the passive losses to offset any of your ordinary income, you can carry forward those losses.  

Also what insurance do you carry on your properties and what is the insurance bill worked out on a monthly basis?

IMO any time a utility cannot be correctly parceled to the proper user in a multiple unit situation, the landlord should carry the full burden of payment.

I find myself trying to justify the valuation and needing to stretch the am schedule out on our seller-carry to 40 years to break even monthly.  

You could get seller to carry back 10%, but problem here is the location.