I have clients that own well over 100 rental units and none of them take a dime out of cash flow in many cases they still need to feed the portfolio from time to time to keep it healthy.

Long term wealth creation from real estate is starting from a healthy leveraged position in debt and positive cash flow from day one. 

For your goals of equity appreciation and positive cash flow, it’s been a sweet spot—steady appreciation from the demand side, plus enough affordability to keep returns healthy.

That’s strong equity growth potential for both cash flow and appreciation.Median sold price is $215K, with buyers still paying around 95% of list price, showing healthy demand.Rents are strong and moving.

It's all about healthy ratios. 

It definitely helps scaling in real estate to have healthy cash reserves and a good understanding and respect for leverage. 

That is 15-20% of the total capital invested (or multiple mortgage payments), and a healthy portion of the capital generally required to furnish or update the home to the standards of a high performing rental.

Make sure you have a healthy margin on rents to keep being able to make payments and just wait it out - then a delay in returns is the worst thing you have to worry about. 

This dynamic is causing occupancy rates to normalize around a healthy, pre-pandemic level of approximately 55%.

As long as the water is tested and comes back with a healthy report, you are good-to-go.