Greetings from New England

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I've been lurking for a few days now, and am very happy I found this forum. It's hands down one of the best I've found for REI, in terms of information available and helpfullness of members. Thanks to you active members for making this a great place.

I'm in the process of closing on my first investment property. In fact, I have the building inspection scheduled today. It's a duplex in a lower income town that has a strong rental market. After much reading and research, I choose this type of investment for several reasons, not the least of which being it is what I can best afford; vacancies shouldn't be a big problem since its a high rental area; its a low income area, so if I find a sound building, I won't need to spend a lot on improvements to attract tenants (since the tenants wouldn't be able to afford to pay for those rental extras anyway).

I'm doing the deal with "no money down-ish" by tapping the equity in my personal residence (HELOC, rate is prime, no margin, 15 year term) for the down payment, and financing the rest at 90% with a conventional 30 yr, 7.75%. (I'm saying "no money down-ish" since none of it is OOP, although technically 10% is my money through equity that is otherwise just sitting there)

The rental income on one unit will pay the conv. mortgage; I'll need to find a tenant for the 2nd (and much nicer) unit since it is owner occupied. With that unit filled, I should be able to cover all expenses and have about $100/mo cash flow (which will go directly into an acct to save up for any repairs down the line first; once that's built to my satisfaction, it'll go towards paying down the HELOC.)

If all goes well with this unit, I hope to buy another by years end. I realize I'm very lucky in that I have considerable equity in my home, and I have outstanding credit.

I have the typical ups and downs of the first time investor; I worry that I'm too eager and overlooking things, or that I'll lose money, or end up with horrid tenants (yes, I'm going to screen them!!). Some days I'm terrified and just want to walk away and other days I'm elated that I'm finally getting into real estate.

I work a standard 9-5 office job, make a decent (but by no means extraordinary--probably be classified as upper-working class or lower-middle class) wage and am a single mom with 2 teens.

Anyway, that's my story. I'm a voracious reader, and I'm constantly reading this and other forums on the net, as well as a bunch of books (waiting for 2 more to arrive from Amazon!), not to mention the newspaper. When I'm not reading about real estate, I'm thinking about it or working numbers or what have it. It's an obsession.