Steer clear of major rehabs unless you have a partner with deep experience or a trusted GC, they eat time, money, and patience.Move-in ready is safest, but if you find a well-located property that needs paint, flooring, or minor updates, that’s a sweet spot for learning and building equity.Happy to support youn on your REI journey!

I started with house hacking and cosmetic fixer uppers, but now do a lot of major fixer uppers to do a BRRRR.

It’s still one of the few bigger metro markets where you can find properties in that price point that cash flow and even hit the 1% rule, and the city has really strong fundamentals—population growth, steady job growth, and a ton of major companies investing here like Intel, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Honda, and Nationwide.

It is depressing values. 

The deals usually used exotic structures / financial engineering to make expensively purchased real-estate pencil out with attractive projected returns (which also greatly increases risk of major loss). 

Now she's in our unit (with her kids grandkids) she is a teachers aide and was unable to find a job over the summer in the depressed area the unit is in.

This could depress rental rates which have fallen y/y by 9% in Austin and other formerly Hot Cities already.

That is, if you can get it on their credit profile, it depresses their credit score until they pay to remove it.Michael,Are you saying that regarding the second time, you didn't even have to do anything to make the judgement show up on their credit report?

If you look at 3/4 units in class A sides of major cities should be able to hit much higher. 

It's a different ballgame now with returns depressed, but the reality of the business hasn't changed and there's not really any way to skip over that part without damaging your future returns by more than you're saving up front.