Perhaps it's something that can be bid competitively to increase return.Paying a commercial general contractor and HVAC tech to tour the property with you would be money well spent.

I buy at a discount because of the depressed value of the asset and then I know I can improve the performance of the asset and increase its value.

Schedule E helps of course.Verify the gross incomecalculate the property taxes that you will pay when the property is re-assessed after the saleGet a few new insurance quotes because it normally increases for new owners if your lender requires windstorm coverageAdd a management feeuse the 50% rule to quickly look at deals to estimate a cap quickly

This was a trick another investor used and talked about during the REI expo last year in order to increase the response rate, which it did.

My net is significantly less due to numerous pre-tax expenses (Daycare FSA, Health FSA, retirement, etc etc) we gross around $56,000, a large difference from what I first posted.As far as SFH vs. multi-unit, I can certainly understand the desire for multi and the increased cash flow, however at the moment I don't feel we are up for the task.

If you don't you run the real risk of just increasing that mess faster than you are able to increase your income.While you are doing that, you need to read everything related to business and real estate you can get your hands on.

Any time you use leverage, it increases your returns.

I'm interested in finding and learning how to increase our rents received each month and possibly flipping or owning more rentals.

If you have a strong historical capital and rent appreciation rate it might make sense to get into this market and wait for natural rent increases and appreciation to take hold and make for better investments if you wanted to stay local.You could also consider looking for turn-key investments in another city (Indy, Memphis, etc) where the returns could be much better - but the risk without having the ability to drive by the properties could be greater.

Maybe improvements that can that can be made to increase the rents if a multi or family.