Boy, you are starting off in the most expensive RE city in the country!

Most of the cash-on-cash returns I'm seeing when calculating even modest management fees and repair/reserve stowaways seem to be consistently in the 4-6% range for COC, and that's assuming no big surprise expenses that affect cashflow. 3b) Even 50 miles outside of Atlanta like Dawsonville, Cumming, Matt areas are expensive for a modest home in areas that have room to grow and don't suffer from being a food desert (you know what areas of the city and metro area I'm talking about).

You may be able to delay a little, but in order to achieve it, it will still cost you dearly in other departments, and the tax bill catches up eventually and may end up being more expensive in the long run. 

But to start off, I'd like to find a 3 or 4 plex, value add, House Hack in Chicago at $800k or lower but can appraise at 20% higher.

In order to create rental revenue that can cover living expenses and provide positive cash flow, it entails buying a single-family home and renting out the individual rooms.

We would like to keep the operating revenue and expenses separate from our personal stuff but want to file them along with our personal tax returns.

Screaming high / fast interest rates employed by the Fed, $10 Trillion in federal spending, extremely low home sales, corporate earnings revised lower and lower, inverted yield curve for Treasury Bonds, etc…, all indicated a recession on the horizon.

Watch your expenses.

Owning property can be expensive and not having cash on hand to deal with situations that come up can put you in a really bad situation. 

The basic rule for the amount of cash to have at hand is 3 months of ALL expenses as if the rental was unoccupied and you had to pay all the utilities on top of the full Primary mortgage, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance (PITI).As well, it's pays to have a bit more because life happens.Good Luck!