Celebrate with me! This one will bring my yearly profit on the rentals to $36K. I've been mostly living off of rental profit and therefore saving most of my salary for the past year, but if I quit or lost my job, I'd have to pay for health insurance, so I think this one will be the point where I'm legitimately FI.
I'm paying $38K for a bank-owned 3bed/2ba with 2-car carport in a safe neighborhood. Zillow estimate for resale is $78K, and for rent is $750/mo. Needs serious cosmetic help, but I can do that myself pretty cheaply. I thought when I made the offer that it would need both a new roof and HVAC, but the leaks on the ceiling were from the HVAC in the attic, and the inspector said the roof has 3-5 years left on it. The main reason that I was able to get it so cheap is that there is a nasty pool in the back yard. I kept getting glimpses of some swimming creatures in the murky brown water. But I'm already reading about DIY pool removal, and a friend offered to loan me a jackhammer. I will have to take down part of the fence to get a dumptruck to fill it up, but that looks to be doable.
So I'm estimating $5-7K for fixing it up. I'm also estimating 14-15% ROI, not including the increased equity for eventual resale. I know many people do better deals, but I have a system that I'm comfortable with and it's working for me.