Newbie Question #8: Having tenants before a property

[Elisha Keller]

So, as many of you know I have about 3-6 months before I'm ready to purchase a unit; however, I know I will be very stressed finding a place, buying the home, fixing what needs fixing and THEN I'll have to find tenants. My boyfriend and I know a few people that will be looking for places to rent in that time. Here comes the newbie question of the day:

Is finding tenants before you have a property a good idea? Some of the folks are people we know very well, we may also take applications from "friends of friends" type thing right now. Would it be smarter to wait until we have everything ready and then go through the process of finding someone? We really want to reduce our vacancy rate (and I definitely don't want to start off with a month or more of empty units).