Buy in a neighborhood you want to live in even if the rent does not cover all of your payment it will still be a lot cheaper then paying rent and then when you move out let someone else pay your entire mortgage. 

I actually built a tool to help me better analyze Furnished Finder listing data, so if you're into MTRs and you're interested in checking that out, let me know!

While some of the condos do also see special assessments, you can also see large unexpected expenses with a single family home. 

Most of the frustrations seem to come from the unexpected stuff that pops up, but good systems, processes, and teams take out a lot of the sting when things come up.

The investment game is all just math—if you do the math well (which includes accounting for the unexpected by low-balling your estimates) then your investment decisions don't have to be stressful emotional ones, they're just decisions that are either smart or not smart after you break them down on a calculator.Which extends to the last point that I've come to believe completely—your rental portfolio is a business.

They remove switchplates and outlet covers.

This is done in conjunction with the 3 day pay or quit and if he isn’t out let him know the eviction is going to be filed same day.

You’ll run into all kinds of unexpected problems that will cost you a lot of money.

Some larger broker outlets will give the option to have the loan processed and underwritten with them but this isn't the norm (UWM comes to mind as a big lender who now gives the broker this option of taking care of all of the processing or certain aspects of the processing which they call "processor assist" - this is fairly unique as far as I'm aware however).There are so many little variables to every situation but generally speaking, if an MLO is skipping over the spot where his/her license hangs and taking a deal somewhere direct, there wouldn't be a compliant way to pay the MLO.  

Challenges included managing renovation timelines and dealing with unexpected structural issues, which taught me the value of flexibility and having a contingency plan.