Do you treat single families and multifamily differently?

Treat it like you would any long term rental.

Treat for mold, and if any wood is seriously damaged, replace that as well. 

Inexperienced operators are.A 30K to 70K house is not inherently unstable.What creates instability is an operator who• buys the wrong street• uses retail-level rehab assumptions• ignores the local payment culture• underwrites like a bank instead of an operator• or treats the price point like a shortcut instead of a disciplineWhen you know how to work in this range, the dynamics change completely.Payment consistency improves.Margins widen.Predictability goes up, not down.The price point is not the risk.The risk is not understanding the game being played at that price point.Most investors avoid moderate-price deals because they assume the volatility is baked in.What they miss is that the volatility often comes from the operator, not the asset.That is the part nobody talks about.And it is why the best opportunities are usually hiding in the places most people walk right past. 

If you keep the numbers tight and treat it like a business, you’ll be in a great spot next school year.

Treat “potential rent” as noise.If it’s not rented today, and if the housing authority hasn’t approved it, it’s not real.We only use:• Current rent (if occupied)• Verified Section 8 payment standard for THAT bedroom countNot “after you add a wall.”Not “after a full rehab.”Not “after the market improves.”2.

It is treated as verifiable, consistent income just like employment income.

If you’ve been in real estate for a while, you’ve probably heard people talk about Real Estate Professional Status (REPS)— but most investors still don’t fully understand what it means or how powerful it can be.Here’s the simple version:If you qualify for REPS, the IRS allows you to treat your rental income and losses as active instead of passive.That means depreciation, cost segregation, and other real estate losses can actually offset your other income — even W-2 income.For full-time investors or spouses who manage their properties, that can mean tens of thousands of dollars in tax savings every single year.To qualify, you need to:- Must materially participate in their rental activities.- Spend over 750 hours a year in real estate activities.- And more than half of your total working time must be in real estate.It’s not for everyone — and you have to document it properly — but for serious investors, it’s one of the most valuable tax tools out there.Most people think wealth in real estate comes from appreciation and cash flow…But the biggest gains often come from how you use the tax code.Curious — have you or your spouse ever tried to qualify for Real Estate Professional Status?

When filing jointly, if one spouse qualifies as a Real Estate Professional and materially participates, the rental activity as a whole can be treated as non-passive for the joint return.

If tenant demand stays steady at different times of year, days on market stay tight, and rent-to-income ratios don’t stretch beyond what’s sustainable for the local workforce, that’s usually the signal that the neighborhood has real depth and not just good-looking spreadsheets.A few miles can change the entire tenant pool, so I treat stability of demand as the first filter and everything else as supporting data.