Well my worst performer was college student rental house. We charged like sin and the phone rang off the hook with would be tenants. In general, I think the Taliban probably have better house habits than the students we had. Actually, we would have been better off to sign a long term lease with bears. College students are vermin and it is not really what we do. (our normal market is 3-5 bedroom SFRs as folks with a batch of kids tend to stay put and I am lazy and do not like to turn over houses, just how I roll. Our lowest hassles and best steady performers are all in pretty good neighborhoods, certainly not war zones, but not in a big city school district either. Our best yielding house by far at 31.5% cash ROI before repairs after tax and insurance (there have been no repairs in 2+ years with the same tenant) is rented to a convicted non violent felon that I have known for 15 years. He asked me to buy him a house to rent in a certain school district because he said nobody would rent to him with his record and we stole a foreclosure for him, total investment less than 20k cash. (he painted the entire inside very nicely and replaced all of the plumbing that the tweekers stole as he is also my plumber). He is getting a killer house 4bd/2bath about $180/mo under market rent and we have a really good tenant who pays like a clock. He is well aware of the deal he is getting and I have no need for more income from the house. At some point the house will need a new HVAC system but other than that it is in stellar shape. We do not rent any houses or deal with neighborhoods that I would not live in. My feeling is that if I would not want to live there neither would most average folks. I do know some folks who absolutely make bank in rough neighborhoods though, ie $600 a month rent on a$3000 house.