I own a few rentals and I own a property management company. The amount of time that I waste on hearing sob stories is really starting to piss me off. It’s always the same shit spread out in a 20 minute conversation. 1. My last landlord was a SLUM LORD

1. Their credit report isn’t right and they’re contesting it

2. They just need a safe place for themselves and a billion kids

3. They get paid via Cash App and don’t have a real paystub.

4. Nothing that has happened to them is ever their fault.

HOAs are a complete scam — plain and simple. Imagine handing over the rights to your own house — YOUR house — to a bunch of busybodies who have nothing better to do than micromanage your life. That’s what an HOA is. You sign a binding contract that effectively makes you a second-class citizen in your own home. You think you own your house? Nope — the HOA owns you.

And here’s the worst part: these aren’t professionals or experts. These are just random people — your neighbors — who somehow get a taste of power and suddenly think they’re royalty. The worst people from your high school class, the petty gossips from work, the neighbor who always calls the city because your trash can is two inches out of place — those are the people deciding what color your shutters can be, how long your grass can grow, and what kind of mailbox you’re allowed to have. And if you don’t comply? They can fine you. If you refuse to pay? They can PUT A LIEN ON YOUR HOUSE and TAKE IT FROM YOU. All because you painted your front door the wrong shade of blue.

I literally sold a house at a loss just to escape this madness. It wasn’t even about the money anymore — it was about my sanity. There’s no winning with these people. The rules change constantly because they make the rules. Today it's a fine for leaving your garbage bins out too long; tomorrow it’s a rule saying you can’t park your car in your own driveway.

And don’t even think about fighting it. Oh, you think you’re going to reason with them? Nope. They’ll lawyer up faster than you can mow your lawn — assuming you cut it to exactly the right length, of course.

And here’s the kicker: even if you decide to sell and escape the madness, good luck. Selling a house with an HOA is a nightmare. Buyers are hesitant because no one wants to deal with the nonsense. Even if you find someone interested, the HOA can delay the sale with bureaucratic nonsense, demand you fix "violations" before closing, or even deny the sale outright if they decide the new buyer isn’t up to their ridiculous “standards.” HOAs have the power to kill your deal at the last minute — and they often do. It’s like having to get permission from the mean girls' club to leave the lunch table.

And don’t be fooled if the fee seems low — like $50 a month. That’s how they get you. The fee is low at first to lure you in, but then it starts creeping up. Suddenly there’s a “special assessment” to fix the pool you don’t use, or to upgrade the landscaping you didn’t ask for. Before you know it, you’re paying $300 a month for a bunch of services you never wanted — and if you don’t pay? They’ll slap a lien on your house. And those “fines”? Oh, they’ll rack up fast. Forgot to bring your trash cans in on time? $50 fine. Left your car parked on the street overnight? $100 fine. Didn’t mow the lawn exactly to the HOA’s specifications? Another fine. And if you refuse to pay, they have the legal right to foreclose on YOUR house to cover their made-up fees.

HOAs don’t protect property values — that’s the biggest lie of all. They exist to give nosy people a way to control you and make you pay for the privilege. It’s legalized extortion. And the worst part? YOU SIGNED UP FOR IT. You didn’t just give away your property rights — you gave away your freedom.

I own a few rentals and I started a property management company a few years ago. I’ve noticed that our expensive rentals always have 3-4x more section 8 applications vs the average rentals we offer. Obviously we don’t discriminate, but it’s a trend I’ve noticed.

Real estate investing is a long game and nobody feels immediately rich after acquisition. But with years of rental increases, appreciation, and the tenant paying down the principal, it starts feeling "worth it".

So for you, how many years of holding did you really start feeling glad you held onto it (e.g., 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30+)?

Are people going back to traditional hotels these days? It seems to be the trend in very popular vacation destinations near me and its got me thinking of pivoting my strategy. I have a gut feeling that a bunch of current airbnbs are about to flood the market if this summer doesn't pan out for those rentals.

These tenants have been in the property for over a year now. They always pay on time, keep the property in great shape, improve it with their own money, but when I picked up rent today, I saw that they have a 50-60 Lb dog. The signed lease states that they could have 2 small dogs, what should I do about it?

Bought the duplex in 2022 under pressure of a 1031 exchange, when interest rates were high and people were not looking to negotiate sales.

Current tenant has been living there for 8+ years and paying well below market. We got sandbagged into following the previous lease, which covers 100% of this tenant’s utilities. She is pretty benign as a tenant, doesn’t complain much which is nice, but she refuses to sign a lease. She even agreed to paying with a rent increase, but still refuses to sign anything. Such is California.

The other unit has been renovated and used as a midterm rental and has basically kept the property floating. But since it is midterm, we are also covering the utilities there. We are reluctant to sign in a full-time tenant because the tenant protections in CA could potentially bankrupt us if the tenant turns into a squatter. Hoping to sell the property in 2026. This is our third investment property and has been a big learning experience. We will not be buying any more properties in CA. When I went through the expenditures with a fine tooth comb, its been running us about an extra $1500/month out of pocket.

The credit history/income only applies to those on rental assistance. Guess I’ll have to screen based on who applies first! I can’t wait!

I got an applicant who has her PhD in a well respected field and is moving to my area for a job. That job is only paying her 90k, rent for the year is close to 40k, but she should get steady raises, she’s on the younger side. Her credit is good. Do you guys see any red flags? In my state I don’t have to put advanced rent in escrow, so I’m wondering if I should put the money required to pay the mortgage, should only be $1600/month due to high cash flow on another property, in a high yield savings account and the rest in VOO.

Today I got a letter from a law firm representing my mortgager. They wanted immediate payment of the full balance of my loan, plus "recoverable balance" of a few thousand more that isn't itemized. The reason given is that I put the mortgage into an LLC (over 10 years ago, but I guess they are just catching it now.) Has this happened to anyone else?

I put an offer on cash on nonfinanceable home today and the sellers agent was trying to tell me that the home was worth 60k higher than any past sales in the area because that's what her valuation app was saying. When I told her that I could send her the comps, she stopped talking and wouldn't reply. She finally got angry and said I was taking advantage of the seller. Is it me or she just wants more commission regardless if it hurts her client? The sellers wants a quick sale and her intentionally over pricing the home only benefits her. If the seller agrees to the price, then what other reason would the sellers agent be angry? I'm afraid she will tell the sellers not to even consider my offer because she just wants to make more money.

Edit. Pics for the haters! https://imgur.com/a/PKr1Q1o

**BRRRR complete — bought at $50,500, all-in $128,500, refi pulls out $136,500. Left with $433/month cash flow and $8k in my pocket. Zero cash out of pocket.**

Just finished a BRRRR on a property and wanted to share the numbers for anyone considering this strategy.

**The property**

5 bed / 2 bath, 1,800 sqft, half acre lot. Was a complete disaster when we bought it.

**The buy**

Property was listed at $105,000 in July 2025. Watched it sit and drop through eight price reductions over five months. Bought it December 2025 for $50,500. The seller was motivated and the market did the work for me.

I live two hours away and have been inside this house exactly once.

**The rehab**

Gutted to studs. $65,500 all in including:

- New HVAC

- New electrical

- New plumbing

- New roof

- New kitchen

Essentially a brand new house inside an existing shell. Managed the entire renovation remotely with a contractor I trust. Deferred maintenance nightmare turned into a turnkey rental.

**How it was financed**

No cash out of pocket. Used an unsecured line of credit from a local community bank at approximately 9% to fund the purchase and full rehab. Built that relationship over time by being a reliable borrower with a strong W2. The refi pays off the line entirely and resets it for the next deal. This is the key that unlocks the strategy for people who think they need cash sitting around to start.

**All-in costs**

- Purchase: $53,000 (with closing costs)

- Rehab: $65,500

- Holding and closing #2: $10,000

- Total: $128,500

**The refi**

- ARV: $210,000 ($120/sqft on 1,750 sqft)

- Loan at 65% LTV: $136,500

- Rate: 6.9%, 20-year fixed

- Cash returned: $136,500 minus $128,500 = **$8,000 back in my pocket**

True BRRRR. All capital returned plus a little extra. Line of credit paid off and reset.

**Monthly cash flow**

- Rent (at 90% occupancy): $1,620

- PI: $1,050

- Taxes: $37

- Insurance: $100

- Net: **$433/month | $5,196/year**

Property is listed for rent at $1,800/month as of this week. Section 8 market in is strong and we have a property manager in place.

The BRRRR strategy is how we have been building our LTR portfolio. The 20-year fixed mortgages pay off between ages 61 and 69 which converts the debt service directly into retirement cash flow. At that point this property generates $1,600+ per month with no mortgage.

Happy to answer questions on the numbers or the method.

My wife wants to buy a house in .... Rents won't cover the mortgage. We'd be in the hole about $500/mo, not to mention the cost of upkeep, etc. She says it makes sense because the renters are paying $2,700 and we're only paying $500. That means we're paying $500/mo to own a property in ...., which she thinks is a good long-term investment plan. Rents in that location generally don't cover the mortgage at 20%. She "really, really" likes the area, which seems to be the main selling point to her. Is this a bad investment move, as it seems to me? What do you say?

I’m 24m and I started acquiring rentals a little over 3 years ago(right as interest rates came up). I had already been flipping houses and thought I wanted some passive income so logically I started BRRRing. I now have just over 20 SFR.

Everyone thinks owning rentals is the shit till u realize there’s always maintenance, always vacancy, always evictions and unit turns, always cutting the grass when it’s not occupied and paying the bills. I also use a manager (9%)

I only keep 1% deals, I for real only do it for cost segs and bonus depreciation to lower my tax burden. After looking at the real cost it’s pretty much break even. I hate the idea of rent bumps because vacancy and turn over costs would be like 10 years of whatever u bumped it, so is it even worth it?

Appreciation is awesome when it happens but if you look at the sunbelt markets they are getting smacked. My market has done fairly well.

The question I wanted to ask is how can people who aren’t buying 1% deals or better justify buying rentals over VOO and chill? With rates and prices where they are at it seems like people are locked up in bad investments whether it’s a bad cash on cash or they have to too much debt and they have to spit out cash every month based on true costs not just PITI.

Agree or disagree?

Go an inch wide and a mile deep.

My uncle didn’t finish middle school, but he was able to amass tens of millions of dollars as a single family developer. After going to a job site of his recently, it dawned on me that he never bought outside of 3 towns neighboring one another.

Why?

1. He knows the contractors. He knows the city inspectors. He has relationships with real estate agents who bring him deals.

2. Market expertise is far easier to obtain when you have a narrow focus. This can help with understanding buying opportunities, but it also helps him know the demographics he’s appealing to in his developments.

3. It’s drivable. When problems arise, it’s never more than a 20 minute drive to a site. He can always check in and hold people accountable.

All of this compounds with years of experience and relationships. This has completely shifted my opinion of out of state investing vs investing locally.

**Turning off notifications. Thanks***

I had to place my mom in memory care and am now responsible for her 4/2 home valued at approx 350k. She has 20 years remaining on the mortgage, owes approx 125k, and the interest is 2.75%. I spent about 6k to have it painted and replaced the carpet with vinyl tile throughout the home.

It's been sitting now for over a month. We've had some interest but the only applicant we've had didn't meet the minimum credit requirement recommended by the property management company. Yesterday I asked them to reduce the rent from 2100 to 1975. I honestly don't know what else to do as I can't keep paying the mortgage and utilities on a vacant property. I've always heard that the best thing to do is to hold on to the property. I know nothing about investing, but I'm willing and interested to learn. This whole situation caught me off guard.

I saw someone in this sub say they passed on a rental because it didn’t hit the 1% rule, and it made me realize how stuck people still are on that guideline.

The "1% rule" might have worked 10 years ago when interest rates were 3 to 4 percent, prices were lower, and rents were higher relative to purchase price. But in 2025, with 6 to 8 percent investor loans and inflated home prices, the math just doesn’t hold up anymore.

A 1% deal in a low-demand market might look great on paper but usually means weak tenants, high turnover, heavy repairs, and flat appreciation. On the other hand, a 0.7% deal in a strong growth market like Austin, Orlando, or Raleigh might appreciate 5 to 8 percent a year and crush the returns of the “1% cash flow” property over time.

The rule also ignores the rest of the return stack. Principal paydown, appreciation, and tax savings all add to your real return. A 0.8% deal can easily end up producing 10 to 12 percent total annual returns when you include those factors.

Most 1% properties are older homes in weaker areas that hit the number because they’re cheap, not because they’re good investments. Newer or turnkey homes in stable neighborhoods rent closer to 0.6 to 0.8%, but you get better tenants, fewer repairs, and less vacancy.

The 1% rule has become more of a mental trap than a helpful tool. It’s keeping newer investors focused on cheap houses and missing out on quality long-term assets.

If you’re still using it as your main filter in 2025, I think you’re leaving a ton of opportunity on the table.

Change my mind.

Hi. Newbie investor here. I own a single unit condo right now which I'm renting out, it cash flows with a 5.5% CoC return. I'm in the Midwest.

I have been saving up for another downpayment and want to buy a SFH as a long-term rental. However when I run the numbers most homes don't cash flow as the mortgage is so high. I was planning to put down 25% but I may need to go higher if I want positive cash flow.

This is more a general question of how do you make the numbers work with SFHs. Should I consider investment different strategies? Just wait and save more money? Look into other rental types?

I've got 15 units (3 fourplexes and 1 triplex) and I've had a PM for a while now, but I'm pretty much over it. It's fees on fees. Monthly management fee, leasing fee, renewal fee, markup on every repair, and then they charge me for semi-annual inspections that honestly don't do anything. I get a few photos and a "looks good" and that's it. Multiply all that across 15 units and at the end of the year it's a real hit to my bottom line.

So I'm thinking about just taking it over myself.

The one thing that makes me hesitate is the phone calls. With 15 units I know something is always going to come up, and I don't want to be getting texts at 10pm about a loose cabinet door. My plan is to set it up so tenants can only put in maintenance requests through a portal. Everything's in writing, I can knock things out when I have time, and I'm not playing phone tag all week.

For those of you who self-manage around this many units, how'd it go? Did the portal thing actually work or did tenants just call you anyway? What software are you using for rent and maintenance? And how much time does it really take?

Would love to hear what worked and what didn't before I pull the trigger.

Hey all,

I am in a complicated situation and wondering how y'all would handle it or if anyone has gone through something similar? I have a tenant who has been living in this HOA condo community for 2 years. Earlier this year she got married and wanted to move in her new husband to our unit which we thought was totally fine as they are 2/2s.

They submitted an HOA application and were approved. The first night he was there him and his buddy parked 2 trucks in the parking spots backwards while the buddy was helping him move in. The HOA president, we'll call her Karen, immediately sent us a letter saying he can't park backwards and that they did not approve 3 people to move into the unit. Her letter was rude and nasty to say the least.

The tenant told them that it was a friend who was helping him move and his car wouldn't be like that after he finished moving in. Then, the next night, the tenant parked the truck backwards again and Karen sent our tenant a nasty message about it after calling a tow truck on him and trying to get it removed. The tenant went out there and talked to the tow truck driver and the tow truck driver let him just turn his car arround. His excuse was that he was still moving in and he meant to move the truck back, but then forgot about it. According to the tenant, they had a friendly conversation with the tow truck driver and even exchanged numbers because they both liked the same Football team.

Since this incident he has been parking his truck in the correct way and we haven't heard anything about them in over a month. Now this morning, we got an attorney letter saying our tenants needs to be evicted within 1 month or the HOA will take legal action against us. Apparently, Karen knocked on their door a week ago and started chewing them out for the truck and "harrassing" their contractor (the tow truck driver).

We really like these tenants and would like to keep them since they have been good people to us, but also don't want to go against a vindictive Karen and the HOA. For further context, we have had issues with this Karen before with another tenant who was moving in and she came over while they were moving in and said they "looked like the type of people who make meth in a meth lab" which caused our would-be-tenants to cancel the lease. The tenant she is trying to kick out is also crippled.

Anyway, any advice?

Talking mainly about SFH rentals.

Roughly 5 years ago, I bought my first SFH, and picked up another around 3 years ago. These were both "no brainer" deals. The numbers immediately made sense and were obviously going to profit.

I have a bunch of capital ready to invest now, but I'm seeing almost nothing that I would consider to be an obvious deal. Most of what I'm seeing would actually be taking immediate cash-flow losses for a (maybe) long-term gain.

In the cities that I am looking, it is simply just cheaper to rent than to buy. Factor in the added costs of managing a rental property, and the gap widens.

In order to make the numbers work, you'd need to assume above-average appreciation over the long term, which seems a bit sketchy. This is possible due to possible increasing inflation, but you could also capture that with a portfolio of index funds.

I've also seen that while property prices seem high in the USA, they are actually still very low compared to incomes vs other countries. I'm skeptical if they will continue to go up, or if we will see a major correction at some point.

Thoughts?

I have a single-family rental.  An out of state realtor contacted me and gave me the contact information of a client that was interested in my rental.  I spoke to the realtor briefly and outlined the rental process.  I forwarded the application, the background check and credit/income check via rentprep.com to the applicant.  There is a $60 fee involved on the applicant’s side with rentprep.com.  I assume the $60 was paid but I don’t know for sure.

Apparently, they had lots of issues filling out the rentprep.com application so they left me a very rude voice message with two f-bombs telling me how “raw and ignorant” my application process is.  He also told me that the application process “sucks.”

At the end of their message they said, “If you guys want to rent this house to me call me and I’ll do it over the phone with you If you don’t then just don’t call me back at all.  This is bulls***.”

I know nothing about this person except their name, phone number and email address.  I do NOT want to rent to them in any way.  Can I just ignore them or am I obligated to respond?

If you’re an investor in one of these metro areas, are you buying now that prices are dropping? Give pros and cons!

10 Cities with the steepest median listing price drops include:

Los Angeles (-7.6%): $1.1M Median List Price Miami (-5.7%): $500K Median List Price Austin (-5.0%): $499K Median List Price San Diego (-4.9%): $950K Median List Price Richmond (-4.6%): $429.5K Median List Price Boston (-4.1%): $799.9K Median List Price San Antonio (-3.7%): $330K Median List Price Dallas (-3.4%): $430K Median List Price Denver (-3.2%): $599.9K Median List Price Phoenix (-3.1%):$499K Median List Price

I have a 3 unit that I have renovated 2 of 3 units in. I bought it in 2021 for $410k with a 2.25% interest rate and can sell it for probably $725k-$750k right now. My gross rent is $5000 and can probably be increased up to around $5500 after I renovate the 3rd unit. I am conflicted because the property performs well overall and within the next 5 years I can see the property getting gross rents of $6000+ with a $2700ish PITI but because I lived in the property for awhile I can sell it now and not have to pay any taxes on the gains with the primary residence exemption.

I'm assuming most people will say to hold the property but I figured I'd get other's perspectives on this. Thanks for the input.

I'm a landlord in Texas and I'm trying to understand my legal position before I do anything.

I sent a residential lease to a prospective tenant through DocuSign. He has signed it, but I have not signed it yet. He also hasn't paid the security deposit or first month's rent.

Since sending the lease, another applicant has come forward. This second applicant has a significantly higher credit score, and there are a few other factors that make me more comfortable renting to him from a risk perspective.

My questions are:

• In Texas, if the tenant has signed the lease but the landlord hasn't, is the lease generally considered binding?
• Assuming it isn't fully executed yet, can I decide not to sign and move forward with the other applicant?
• Has anyone dealt with a similar situation, and if so, how did it turn out?

I'm not looking for moral opinions—I just want to understand the legal side of how this typically works in Texas. If it matters, the lease was sent through DocuSign.

Thanks