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What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent?
There are those who are knowledgable in real estate who offer rules of thumb: Don't pay more that 50X the rent for the house. Here, $972 x 50 is $48600. Assume half the rent goes to expenses. So from $972, you net $486, and after that mortgage, you have $111 in profit. Zillow usually assumes 20% down, here $20K. So you are seeing a 6.67% return on your 20K. (Plus appreciation and principal paydown.)  For the record, I just bought a 3 family, under renovation now. Expecting total cost to be $160K, and total rent $2500. I missed ratio a by a bit, but $1250 to go toward a $120K mortgage works out fine. $550 profit/mo on the 25% down ($40K). (By the way, a turnover of tenants can cost (a) a month of no rent, (b) a cost to the real estate agent, if you use one, and the cost to paint/repair. This is generally considered 10%. So if the 50% of rent seemed high, here's 10 of it.)