So zero gain, small loss so far after almost a year.

Your walking into negative equity and a loss of 25k which I don't believe the smartest use of your funds.

In short, we work with our CPA and lawyer to hold everything in LLC's to lower personal tax liability, do the best we can within the boundary of the rules to have income qualify as passive, try to offset with book losses if we can, and 1031 when possible.I'm more than happy to share offline...

I'm showing them their contractual "outs" so they can limit their losses.

If the cash buyer coated the house with gold then it take years to sale or even a loss.

Not to say people aren't doing it and making money - and REI is local and not necessarily macro - but it's hard to justify a buy-and-hold strategy in a state that is experiencing massive corporate job exodus, increasing taxes, ballooning debt, and net population loss.

With respect to our tenants renter's policies, it will be a little more difficult to require this of low rent tenants but I have already discussed with my PMs and we are working on an approach to make sure they all have in effect policies so my policy is not first in line in case of a loss due to tenant negligence (even if we have to contribute to the cost). 

It was very eye-opening when considering high paying W2 jobs and tax losses versus real estate investing and using depreciation.

Since that's not the case, they'll have to either sell it and eat the loss by bringing cash to the table, shortsale it, or rent it out until there is enough equity to sell it.He doesn't need to get into a situation where she stays there and randomly stops making payments.

At least with stocks you can cut your losses and move on, but not so with a mortgage.In central NC, there is a lack of supply and high demand, especially now during the summer.