A lot of the best opportunities for some of us depending on our druthers are going to be in older homes. These are houses that have served fixers/entrepreneurs well through many cycles and have a few more in them. The money is in the dirt/location. I would worry more about vacancies and expenses to keep the rentals decent. I wouldn’t want a really crappy house because I could not be a slumlord for many reasons.

This has been covered already on this thread but I would rather have a small old house in town than a big equally priced equally rent-able one in another area. It hurts less when the tenants trash it. Small low maintenance yards are good.

The termite issue is way overblown. Water damage can be fixed. Old houses stand up to hidden leaks and such much better than the new ones do. This is because there is less particle board, osb and plywood. Unless it goes on for a really long time in an old house you can often times just let the thing dry out. In newer homes where these newer products are involved you might have an extensive ripout and repair the first time they get wet.

Water is an issue with rentals though because sometimes tenants don’t care if something comes loose and drips. They will do stupid stuff, like plug up the waste drain and overflow so they can fill the tub to the rim and not care if it overflows to the floor and seeps into the house a little every day.