Don’t let that number push you into overconfidence early.If this were me at 21, I’d prioritize:• A conservative house hack that cash-flows or breaks even• Learning tenant screening and maintenance basics firsthand• Preserving flexibility for deal #2, not maxing leverage on deal #1There’s no rush.

I would select a market which has strong rental demand and affordable entry costs like TX, then I would calculate basic deal metrics which include cash on cash return and monthly cash flow before I start my advanced analysis.

This post is basically a user-authored indictment of the entire modern PMS category.Let me reframe what Judith actually said—because when you line it up cleanly, it’s devastating.What Judith accidentally wrote (decoded)Scale reality check87 doors, 16 ownersThis is not enterprise.

Staffing, maintenance, seasonality, and guest management are all very real challenges, particularly on the East Coast where you shut down and basically have to rebuild the team every spring. 

Simple concepts like "get three estimates" sound super reasonable until you find out that the only contractors willing to spend their day driving arround and putting together free estimates are the ones who factor that time into their price structure.

I also didn't know the concepts that people talk about here at that time.

You have tried the basic steps that make sense.The best solution is re-route the water lines through a heated space.

Once you get a piece of property under contract, then you're outsourcing all of the entitlement work to experts and basically managing that part.  

Builders are basically rewriting the affordability math right now, and it’s not because their base prices crashed, it’s because the incentives are doing all the heavy lifting.

Basically own residential RE with the effort and risk for the same return as can be projected long term for the passive S&P.