Third deal lesson learned

I was excited about my business and that I had gotten a rental and flip in 1 year. My beginning strategy was to get a rental with my money and have it pay itself off. I had also learned that flipping was a good strategy to get good cash so I decided maybe doing 1 flip and buying a house with the profits as a rental was the way to go. I went to an auction one day in a decent neighborhood and the house was pretty much move in ready. I was able to get it for 25,000 which was the top of what I wanted to pay. Houses in the area went between 35 and 50 so I thought it was a good deal and would be a good rental. I was able to rent it out the day I gained possession for 700 a month I was so happy and thought it was great. My mistake was not doing a background check. After 2 months I had to lower the rent to 650 to accommodate my renter who was falling behind. After about 6 months of stress and late payments and partial payments I had to evict. My first eviction argh! I was hoping it would be a nice easy thing and that people were generally good but I was wrong :(. The tenant had left the place in horrible condition It took about 3,000 to make the place rent able again. So after 6 months I had broke even about not making any money such a horrible ROI. Desperate to make something work and recoup money lost with wasted time I tried to find other options for the property. I was trying to sell it on my own and then I found a site where you can do rent to own. By this time I had done a rent to own on the other property I had bought during the 6 months through a man who helped me find the tenant and did all the paperwork. So I was considering rent to own and selling it. I put it on Craigslist as both. I did get an offer from an investor because I was a real estate agent at the time and had a client. But it was 35,000 owner financing 8% so I would get a good interest rate and profit over time however I wouldn't be getting as good of a return as I would like I wanted 15% or more and owner financing didn't seem a good idea for me to do I could get more in rent. After some time I found a tenant to do a rent to own 5,000 down for the option to purchase within 3 years and the background check was good. A separate contract for the rental term 3 years at 700 a month with 100 a month going to purchase price of 52,000! This number was far out for me I thought I would be lucky to get 35,000 so this was great. I got this number though from the guy who did my previous rent to own he looked at it and told me around 50 he was trying to market it but I was as well and I got the client first! So I did not have to pay him a finders fee. This seemed perfect to me because I recouped the 3,000 I lost with the rehab and gained an additional 2,000 all non refundable although it goes to the purchase price. I get about 450 PCF a month until they decide to buy it or not if they don't buy it the cash flow would have been 550 a month and I keep the additional 5 grand and I can do it again which would be great. So it took me about 7 - 8 months but I turned this bad deal into a great deal.