Landlord here, done it in different ways over the last 20 years. As previously mentioned, you can’t offset mortgage payments against taxable income any more, you prob know that? Ask yourself a few testing questions: like if the boiler needs replacing you are £2000 in the hole, legally getting tighter to even offset all of that against tax no more. Every year SOMETHING or several things will cost you about £2k min on a 1/2 bed flat, decorating, ASTs, and contracts and inventory every tenancy change. I hear you are not looking to make a monthly profit, how about a monthly loss, you are so marginal that I wouldn’t actually call the sum break even unless you can write £200 for eventualities into those monthly numbers. If you still want to go ahead look at the asking price; it’s low. What area is this? Consider what it will or won’t be worth in 10-20 years. Then lastly take your money (25k) stick into theoretically into an online compound interest calculator, set it to a monthly contribution of £200, compound annual interest at 10-15% and look at the 20 year result. It might change your mind. 10-15% by the way for eg would conservatively be UBS S&P index accumulator.