She's barely knocking off the savings of not having an agent do the deal (usually 6%). 

House 3 : townhouse condo style, nice pictures on the listing but when visiting, you find out that the places where the pictures were not taken actually require major work (bare stairs, carpets or paints to redo, missing sink, dead/dirty fridge... ) and same thing, no electricity/water to test anything... 

@Aaron Montague4% is barely appreciation, it's more like a little above the historic inflation rate.

They can paint it pink,  start a puppy farm in the master bedroom, and completely destroy the home because they essentially own it at this point. 

There are still some deals out there but you have to look everyday and you have to at least go 5% over asking at a bare minimum.There was a house on Canal St yesterday that I didn't have a chance to run look at before offer cutoff.

@John H.I would get out of your current home if you can do so without losing a substantial amount of money.Then I would purchase a 2-4 unit property and see if you can get your portion of the payment to zero, or better yet, have the tenants pay for everything AND put some coins in your pocket every month.In my mind, investments should make you money, not keep themselves just barely afloat.

Class A/B are more tenants-by-choice, so they have more freedom to move.

Those barely use any water and are not considered energy hogs anyway on the grand scale of things in the unit.

We(just barely) managed to finance the property with just my wife's name on the loan.

It really does just boil down to personal preference of if you view it as worth the work or not.I should note, this is a very bare bones deal.