Am I prepared for first rental property purchase.......

[Dale Miller]

Just been thinking of anything I can and should do to be prepared for bidding on my first rental property. I know there are alot of investors out there and I will be competing with some successful big shots. I don't like to lose when I bid and I'm just a little guy starting out. 

So far I get MLS listings, Prequalification, can do 25% down, can analyze

[Jonathan Greene]

If you don't like to lose, that is the best way to lose on deals over and over. And I don't mean by not winning, I mean by bidding too much. If you get the eBay fever when you are bidding, you are bidding with your heart which should not play a role in your purchasing. You should know your numbers so well that you bid a number and that's your number. You walk away and bid your number on a few more. Most of the time you get outbid and then plenty of those times the deals fall apart because the person who won gets bidder's remorse.

How good are you at evaluation rehab budgets? How good is your agent about getting you rental comps? If you are looking for a two-family home, you should only be looking at rental comps in multi-family homes, not apartments - that is a mistake most agents make when sending you comps. What is your goal? Cash flow? Appreciation? Are you going to manage them yourself? Are you prepared for that? Do you have your own leases made up?