Nervous about renting out first rental property

[Jane Z.]

Just finish repairing my first rental property. It is a ranch home with 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms. Nice, clean, lots of trees and privacy in a good school district. My property manager took some pictures last Wednesay and put on MLS, which seems also flowing to other websites, such as Zillow. She said she will also post ad on Craiglist soon.

The property manager was referred to me by my real estate agent. I consulted her before I bought any of my rental properties. Since she has been working in property management business for more than 12 years, I thought I should value her opinions a lot. Basically she is against buying at rundown neighborhoods or bad school districts, even though those neighborhoods are at very convenient locations. She values a good school district more than anything else. The other thing is that she prefers not putting a 'For Rent' sign in front of rental properties. Her theory is that internet savy tenants are better quality tenants. Besides, too many 'For Rent' signs make a neighborhood look not very nice.

It is less than one week since we put the ad, but my friend, who bought in a bad school district, but a convenient location, told us she rent out her house even before she finished the repair with a good rental price. I was so sure about my investment strategy, which is only buying single family rental properties with positive cash flow in decent neighborhoods at good school districts. Now I am a little lost. I could buy even cheaper properties in those bad neighborhoods. It seems it is not difficult to get them rent out at all with a good price. I told my property manager my worries. She said it took time to find a good tenant and the tenants she placed before have never live less than a year in the properties, usually several years. The other thing is that I think she put the rental price ($1250) too high. But she said we could lower the price after two weeks if no one responses. I am so nervous now. Not so sure whether my friend or my property manager is right because my friend always argues many houses in good school districts are too far away from the main traffic.