I would say its extremely important to have a quick (like 60 second elevator pitch) for why you want to enter the business and what returns you are looking to get. 

Before the crash, it seemed like you couldn't get the numbers to work that well in terms of cash flow but you could find deals here and there and the financing and appreciation was definitely there.During the bust you could easily find discounts but the financing was impossible to get and the rental profits were extremely tough and thats even if you self managed. 

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

Most people that I talk to about it give me strange looks when I tell them that we own rental properties but basically live in a tiny house (400sq ft RV) ourselves.Eventually, we'll go back to having our own brick and mortar house, but this season is actually pretty fun for us and we've really been enjoying it.

I was also appreciative of Dave’s patience and exacting answers to any questions and was clear to me he has more than perfected his craft.The title company had a portal that collected all the documents and laid everything out in phases that I could log in at any time to see progress.As one who is extremely organized I felt I was in a safe space and knew any issues would be addressed.

Our lawyer provided us with the projected fees for both options and a Series LLC was extremely expensive.What is the ideal number of properties / total asset value for an LLC?

If the owner lives in town, you could even go knock on their door, I find this to be extremely successful when you are going after foreclosed properties.As to your 1st post, you might want to look at city data for growing markets, It looks like Rochester lost population last year, vs if you look at sunbelt cities like, Houston, DFW, Austin, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, these cities saw at a minimum 1% population increase.

Choosing your market is extremely important.. 

I really see Columbus Ohio as an extremely safe bet for the next 10-20 years.

The makeup of the council is extreme far left.