I would recommend looking for those SFR properties that have been owned for some time and the owners don’t need to charge a lot in order to make a profit.
In our case, we stumbled upon a 1700sf SFR in the Carlsbad area that was well below what we had been planning for($1865/mo). Being the skeptic that I am, I thought that there had to have been a catch. We went to the address, physically checked it out, and noticed that it had not been maintained as well as it should have been…but it wasn’t in that bad of shape. This (along with the year they purchased the property) explained why the monthly rent was so low.
We ended up going for the place. After a few months we worked out a deal with the owner to reduce the rent to $1800 if we took care of the basic landscape services (mowing the lawn, etc). They didn’t mind this as they terminated their contract with their landscaper who would just “mow, blow, and go” in just the front yard.
This brought the price per square foot down to about $1.06. I also run my own business out of the garage (~400sf) and we also deduct one of the living areas, so the cost per square foot is much lower than would normally be had we owned the property outright.
