My first property has been a great success!
I am now up to three properties, but the first really worked out well, here are the details:
I'm in Jacksonville FL and in 2012 the market was still pretty rough from the financial fallout. I met a property manager who worked at the same company I did and met with him basically saying, "You're my guy, I want rental properties."
Not long after that he approached me with one of his owners that had moved out of the city and wanted to cut ties with the area. The property already had tenants, and they were all planning on staying for a while.
Here's where luck kicks in a bit. The price was 125k, and I put over 25% down to get the interest rate to 4%. The rents has always been around 1300+/- so it has made money from day one. I knew nothing about valuation, 1% rules, 50% rules etc, but I knew that I would be making money every month so I dove in.
Over the past few years it has needed some work, it's in a nicer neighborhood and a larger investment company has bought up alot of properties and rented them out, but they really spiffed up the insides quite a bit. So aside from occasional repairs and exterior cleaning demanded by the HOA I have had to put in about 4k. That went to a combination of cosmetic upgrades and durability upgrades to cut down on future repairs/carpet replacement etc.
Last year I bought another house on the same street, and that cost around 168k, so I know the first one has a little appreciation built in.