To be totally honest, the time to buy there was in 2011-2012.

Experiment budget is currently set at around $50-80K total up-front cash outlay (i.e., combined pool for downpayment, rehab, professional services, etc.).On that note, I'd assumed I would use leverage and have estimated 25% down, but I'm open to interesting cash plays.I 100% insist on using property management, and all of my planning includes that cost.Ideally I'd like to hit ~8+% cash-on-cash return after all is said and done (taxes, payments, repairs, insurance, PM fees, capex, professional services, estimated cost of vacancy and turnover, etc.).

I am currently trying to obtain all the monthly costs to come up with a total monthly cost, I have more most of them.

My total rents are $2400/month.

Totally missed that it was a duplex originally, but if it's duplex don't you have more expenses that you as a landlord need to pay for the common areas (e.g. mowing, heat/utilities in common area, etc.)?

I recently purchased two investment properties, both with 20% down payments (totaling around $100k) which used up essentially all of my available funds.

Ideally I'd like to come across a property that will give me a positive cash-on-cash return without including the unit I will be occupying but obviously that's going to be tough to come across.

So if you wanted to break it down per unit it's $35 per unit total per month

Since I'm able to find deals that have such a big, obvious value and profit margin built into them, I'm able to list and sell them for a very cheap price and still make a good profit (and the properties basically sell themselves). i.e. - My shortcomings in salesmanship are easily overcomeable because I've mastered a different part of the acquisition process - one that mostly negates the need for me to be a master salesman... does that make sense?

@Samuel Carmichael besides what @Brandon Ingegneri said about looking at absolute dollar amounts to figure out if it's even worth the aggravation, I also agree with @Michinori Kaneko about looking at percentages.Personally I look at percentages first, namely 1) cash on cash return (yearly money back after all expenses including mortgage, divided by all money invested to get it rentable) and 2) debt service coverage ratio (net income after operating expenses but before mortgage payment, divided by the mortgage payment).The first is (obviously) a measure of return, while the second is more of a measure of risk as it tells you how much of a buffer you have between the property's net income and the monthly fixed mortgage payment.After you get a little more experience you'll also start to factor things like replacement reserves into account.