But… if the renting out rooms doesn't qualify as your primary and you wait until year 2 to start renting out rooms you’ll be forced to sell before year 5 or you’ll be back to zero tax free again.

That's three months of mortgage and utilities, the cost of flooring, and the cost of painting.

Some of the best tenants I started on a month to month and then transitioned them to year leases. 

This got us in the game with very little of our $ to get started.

When these homes get listed, we get photos and the 'dream of owning your own vacation home' So we have to start with price & location..if those both meet the criteria, then we hone in on weather we want one that has not been taken care of and likely not generating enough income to cover expenses or one that is fully themed and likely will continue to do well if all else stays the same.

With each passing day, I lose rents and am now covering utilities, all of which were tenant responsibility.

I started off in 2009 spending 3K on 5 liens and I got burned on two of them and lost most of my money.

I would start by removing carpet and cleaning what you can, paint and then ozone as long as it takes.Ozone is cheap, but with fresh paint and new carpet it might ad up to $10k.

Mortgage, utilities, maintenance, repairs, consumables, advertising, etc.

I do have a realtor but I'd like to be self-sufficient as much as possible, and I'm starting my realtor license course next week so soon I'll be able to look at the MLS myself which I'm looking forward to very much!