• By sara h, July 3, 2010 @ 5:51 am You want low price, long time on the market, relatively good condition, decent community. Get a buyers agent and put them to work for you. A word of advice, screen your tenants well! One of the worst things to happen is that the other owners in the neighborhood get ticked at you because your tenants are destroying the neighborhood. Also keep your property up.

• By Insensitively Honest, July 4, 2010 @ 12:50 pm If you are going to rent it out , do not put a ton of money in to this property , very few people make anything with just one house , and with the number of people who are defaulting, You will have to choose your tenants carefully without discriminating or that could lead to further legal trouble, my point is the majority of renters will not take care of your property , pipes will leak for months before you are notified , and BIG deal you keep the security deposit , most of the time the damage is more than the deposit , and if they stop paying rent , they get one month behind , most places has a thirty day eviction so that gives them two months rent free , then the tenants retaliate and destroy more , They can be made to fix the damage if you can find them to have them served with court papers , …All I am saying is do not count on it as investment , because it will cost you more in the long run , NOW if there is a place that has the land you want ,with a so so house , you can do this , and let the rent help you make the payments to pay off the land , normally after 15 to 30 years the home is trashed and really not worth fixing , when the house sits vacant the payments do not , then you will more likely take in the next stranger with the money out of the urgency to rent , I had a friend to do that , the couple was very nice , had nice cars , always paid in cash , one day they were gone , come to find out those nice people manufactured meth in the home , the house had to be destroyed, the makers always look for the least likely place to get caught making that stuff. besides this is not TV , rich people do not rent, mostly those who do not pay their bills and have little or no credit are the ones who rent , Just trying to give you the other side of renting it is not easy nor is it like on TV , If you do this just for the land you may come out ok , but with a head ache , it can be done but it is no where near the easiest way to make money , I hated it when I rented properties , I finally just got out of it , and took my losses as the reminder to never do that again.

• By realestatebirddog4, July 6, 2010 @ 7:09 am Hi, After doing several major rehabs, I look for properties that need little to no fixing — paint, carpet, landscape. But I could just be a bit crispy-fried on the rehab thing right now. You want to work your numbers. Take the mortgage payment (principle and interest) plus your taxes and insurance. If you are paying any utilities, add that in. If the place is in reasonably good shape, figure 5% of the rental income for maintenance (I prefer 10% to be safe) and figure another 5% of the rent for vacancy. Add all these up. If you can rent the property for more money than that figure, (and I look for at least a couple of hundred dollars more) then it is a go. If you are just in the shopping stage and want a quick and dirty number, you want your rent to be equal to 1% or greater of the sales price. For example, if a property costs $100,000, you want it to be able to rent for at least $1,000 a month. So, know what rents are for properties in various neighborhoods and do your math. I prefer pretty single family homes in nice, safe neighborhoods. They attract the kind of tenants I want — nice people with jobs. Best of luck to you, Barbara

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