As the new owner, you’ll want the lease and your landlord insurance policy to take effect as soon as you take title to the property.Temporary Lease Considerations:While short-term leases can work well, leasing to a seller long-term often leads to complications.

For someone looking for diversification or steady long-term growth without getting too hands-on, your suggestion of buying and upgrading a rental property in a familiar and appreciating area makes a lot of sense.

They don't understand how to price effectively, study the market, set boundaries with tenants, establish policies and procedures, communicate, and dozens of other things.

My current solution of using Baselane is by far the most cost effective and easiest, but it still requires that I spend time bookkeeping.

I suggest you start with developers in your local area (your county and neighboring counties level) because they would be your most likely partner or parcel buyer. 

However, this is not really effective in the real world.

You started with the $ you saved that had effect of securing just 1 property.

It would be good to understand how one should take that view in order to effectively use that information to decide on how to proceed with a property. 

I suggest you form an answer for each, @Jonathan Warner.

Just a suggestion ...