By the time you back out the utility allowance (in OR), you're prob at 85% of market rent.6) You need to keep a lot of records basically pertaining to tenant income so paperwork needs to be real clean (LIH mgmt is like 13% of gross vs 8% for market-rate stuff).

Can't pay for maintenance, utilities, employees, property tax because of this mandate from the state? 

I would much rather have a local utility company employee go in and see what is going on and how much it's going to cost before moving forward.

Both me and my spouse are salaried employees with W2 incomes.Based on the above numbers, what will be the basis for rental depreciation?

What do your full time employees do? 

Gross Rent 10,800Vacancy @6% -648Net Rent 10,152Prop Tax (180/mo) 2,160Insurance (est.) 500Repairs & Maintenance(5%) 540Prop Management (8%) 864HOA (220/mo) 2,640Net 3,448Debt Service (262.61/mo) 3,152Net before consideringcapex or assessments 296I don't know what your insurance, repairs & maintenance, or prop management cost will be but I suspect these are fair estimates.

btw cheryl, the 50% rule debate and the 'cashflow vs apprecation' debate are 2 different things to me...you can buy for apprecation as long as you can handle the losing months.i don't argue that at all....however, i wno't budge onthe 50% rule..over the long term, studies have shown expenses will average out to around 50% of your gross rents, no matter what your strategy is

That says vacancy, capital, and expenses will eat 50% of the gross scheduled rents.

If you invested in a bigger boat, more equipment and some employees, you could have an extremely successful business!  

@Andy Gross  you are right, there were a LOT of people buying back then counting on converting to condos all over the city.