You'll never be ready, but you can mitigate risks and go in informed.

After the year I plan on keeping things as is, so that net cash flow can mitigate any rental expense that I myself incur (i pay 525 mo for a 1 bed apartment).Do you guys think its a good idea to get a source of passive income in the midwest (where I currently work), to offset my rental expense, and future rental expense if i ever decide to move to a more expensive area?

I have heard $150/mo+ as a general criteria but in this case, something like $400/mo or above would make sense to mitigate vacancy, repairs, lack of appreciation? 

:Look at many metrics and actually thoroughly learn them:IRRgood for evaluating dissimilar projects but doesn't given magnitudes or timing of cashflowsCash on Cash ROIIf you're putting down 300k to pay in full and then only cash flow $100 bucks a month, although it's cashflowing, I'd barely say that's something to write home aboutBreak even YearYear when profits turn positive and stay positive......This whole discussion may also have an undertone that one should, although it may be difficult at first to setup, geographically diversify to mitigate risk in any one market.  

Just do your best to educate yourself in order to mitigate the risks that are involved, run your numbers, and make offers!

We hear that bed bug mitigation can cost thousands of dollars.  

They don't tell you that you cannot evict Bob because he has equitable interests in the title and it can take 120 days or more, plus legal fees, plus repairs, plus MORTGAGE payments, to finally get him out of there.I was sitting here planning to lease option my primary residence and I wrote down my "doomsday scenarios" and realized that I have to spend more money than I thought for legal help to understand and / or mitigate the risks...  

They are very knowledgable about the market, I value their input, and they're input would help mitigate the underwriting risk on an opportunity.

It is a lot more risk than I am comfortable with; yes there are incentives but that does not mitigate the risk sufficiently in my opinion. 

Flipping is a high risk activity, and the greatest way to mitigate that risk is through knowledge and experience.