Why there’s incentive for me to not buy another property

I’m near the end of a home sale negotiation where we have a $3000 gap we cannot agree on. I’m about to walk, and I feel like my agent or the seller will have to concede in some way if the deal is to go through.

I haven’t been budging because I realized throughout these 16 days of escrow that I’m actually incentivized to not buy a single family home. Even though it diversifies my property portfolio and supposedly appreciates better, it’s terrible for renting on it’s own. It veers cashflow negative and would require renting all 5 rooms our separately to get a bit of cashflow or be cashflow neutral after maintenance.

Even though the property is a good deal and in good condition, my recent dealings with a tenant has made me afraid of opening more contracts and managing even more tenants.

There are a few smooth months where nothing happens, but I’m encountering a lot of landlord work with just 2 properties and 4 contracts. And now I am potentially doubling my number of contracts?!

That will take away my time from other goals I want to pursue. And overall, that will harm me.

I am okay with like 1 contract per property at this point in terms of new deals. And even though condos/townhomes mean dealing with HOAs, I’d rather do that with better cashflow and less work.

So that extra $3000 gap is to sweeten the deal for me. I GUESS I’ll take the extra work if we can use that to soften the cash at close.

But this week has been bad for stocks, and I’d rather just buy and hold some leveraged ETFs and wait things out. Maybe buy another condo if I spot a good deal that cashflows with renting the whole thing out.

Transitioning between tenants can be a headache, I learned, so I might be happy with just these 2 properties and focus the rest of my time on personal goals and pursuits. I don’t want this forcing me to not be able to travel and do other stuff! But if I can get that $3K, I guess I’ll do it and perhaps try to combine rooms together for rent to minimize my management sigh.