I have been a member of bigger pockets for maybe 2 years. I just recently purchased my first rental property in Middletown NY. It's a 3 bed 1 and half bath townhouse. Interesting thing about this property is that for the past year I was about to buy three different properties in the same community for double the price I eventually paid for the one I now own. The first one I looked at the same community, the same 3 beds 1/2 Bass it was selling 64,000 I made an all-cash offer of 45,000 my offer was rejected. The second time I looked at a property in the community it was the same and it was listed for 79 it needed maybe 10,000 and repairs to get it back up to market value. These units rent 1450.In the mean time I waited. Kept my eye on the MLS, Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and all the auction sites I heard or read about. I stumbled on an auction site Hudson and Marshall. I saw one of the townhouses come up for sale that I was looking at. Starting bid of 17,000. I was shocked, NO WAY! I waited till the last day of the auction and at that point it was still a 17,000 it seem no one was bidding on it. Knowing what I was about to pay for the previous ones I decided that I was going to buy this one I put in my bid on the last hour of the last day of the auction, As soon as I Put in 17,500 someone bid against me. We went all the way up to 27,000 that is the price I paid for it plus 2500 for the auction house for the sale. So I purchased it for 27000. There was a tenant in there so I knocked on the door express to them that I just purchased the property and I would like to know if they were interested in staying because if they wanted to stay I would work with them. I knew was going to be hard to get them out immediately so I made an agreement with them that if we can get along and I fix some stuff and they paid rent on time we would be great. By working with each other to make sure that is a win win. Took me 2 months to close on the property. In the two months while waiting I communicated constantly with the tenant, She send me pictures of the place so I could get an idea of the repairs that are needed once I closed. I closed on February 29th and I went I collected my first rent March first for 1200 here's how everything been working so far I made an agreement with the tenant to fix some of the problems they had because the previous landlord wouldn't the previous landlord we collecting rent on a bank own property. He was charging them $1,000 so I told them that I would take 1200 and they will work with me on the repairs but so far has been a good experience but had a few hiccups but I'm pretty sure we will figure it out soon. A Huge thank you the Bigger Pockets community for the information provided you guys made a huge difference in in my understand of investment properties. Anyone in orange county NY.