I've spent several years now writing software to help myself (and to educate potential clients and clients through classes, podcast episodes and books) model real estate as a  tool to achieve financial independence and to fund retirement.

Best practices depend on your business model and are learned over time through experience.

The other way is to do the “cash flow per door” model.

I agree that's the best way to calculate your returns but when you are evaluating a deal on the front end to figure out if it meets your 30% gross margin and 40k net profit parameters, what figures do you plug into your financial model for Commissions,closing costs, transfer taxes, stamps etc to confirm that the deal pencils out? 

This is your business model.2.  

And the U.S. might have to resort to the South Korea model, of a testing-tracing regime, to get it under control.)

Check out https://www.adventuresincre.co...Lots of great models and tutorials.

@Alex Pendleton when you say cashfliw on the cape, I automatically assume weekly rentals, but I would be interested to hear more about your business model out that way.The cape isn't too far from Fall River where most of my portfolio currently is, but I am not sure if I could convince my property manager to go that far, lolDo you self manage?

.- Nearly always (unless your home is like a staged new construction model home) staging - meaning even if you have your own items in the home, usually moving things around, removing some, replacing others with rental items if the original items make the rooms look too small or dated, adding/replacing decor and art work, making sure flow and decor maximize space and positive features, repainting walls if the paint color is lowering appeal.- Same concept for outside.- Professional grade photos.- Pricing that takes into account your home's unique features, which could mean going higher or lower than just lumping it in with the mix of comps that appear to be similar.This is agent specific and not necessarily related to a specific company, I see high end 'premier' listings poorly marketed by mainstream traditional companies sometimes and some 'budget' agencies where the agent just did a great job with this stuff. 

Most management companies would not allow this hybrid marketing/processing model, for fear of noncompliance with fair housing (usually it's not intentional but accidental and due to incomplete understanding of all the ways you can get into hot water) as well as the added complexity.