If it doesn't generate fat piles of excess cash you don't buy. 

You can gain equity but you want to outpace inflation.Many buy in these areas and others for the appreciation more than the cash flow.If I just keep up with inflation I feel like I am just spinning my wheels.The 50k houses in Atlanta the investors were probably sold a bill of goods.We have properties here that sell for 4k to 6k in the war zone areas.The nice properties in great areas are gone in a day or two.These companies then out in a tiny amount of money and resell for a fat profit to out of town investors.Home buyers to live in your area will pay a premium.Have a broker/agent research the MLS.Has there been any solds within the last year even close to the price you would need??

Media often presents us as rich fat retired on a beach white guys (real estate publications don’t help this nor do blogs like BP with headlines like “Retire in 12 months with $1,000,000!”

If I can't trust what they are saying, its a big fat PASS for me.

The old chicks, fat chicks, and ugly chicks will say that it ain't so, but they are wrong.

This will involve more overhead and more risk as the cash flow won't be as fat. if your goal is to keep things simple with very low risk, it's a great idea to pay properties down as fast as possible and buy the next a little while later. growing faster usually means Slimmer margins on each deal but more deals coming in and in the long run a bigger snowball at the bottom of the hill.

Since then I've been devouring the podcasts and forum discussions like fat kid in a Twinkie factory.I'm ready to get out of analysis paralysis and take my first steps towards achieving my financial goals, so I'm sure you'll see me around here more often.  

Sometimes it's unavoidable, but you can definitely minimize it by being really comfortable with your original plan, and where you will cut the fat when (not if) you need to.Then, the construction loan is only very short term so you need to make sure you have solid contractor who can get things done on a timeline.

It's been tough trying to find a 12%pa cash-flow property here lately and this a higher return than that.Phoenix has become a little tougher to find a deal with a lot of fat on it, not impossible, but tougher than when I started.

I think that is a red flag that a turnkey provider is making a fat profit.