You can tell who is actually passionate about their job and passionate about the market usually pretty quickly.

If they were an employee of yours or a member of your team in a different business, would you dock their payroll if they made any mistake for you in their day-to-day job?  

You have to be an active manager and many current owners are not wanting a second job and are selling.

The potential liability from having someone do a job they are not licensed to do far outweighs the cost-benefit.

If it's way out of whack with the market average, dig deeper.Debt Service Coverage Ratio: Key for nderstanding if the property's cash flow will cover financing comfortably.Historical Vacancy Trends: Especially in areas like Chicago, where local job markets fluctuate, knowing vacancy trends can help you anticipate rough patches.Rent Growth vs.

Otherwise, you can never attain financial freedom because rents will not outpace inflation.How long your rental income lasts depends on job growth in the investment city.Non-government jobs are inherently temporary.

Long term, the Austin market will do just fine with strong population and job growth.

Ben Russell has done an excellent job of covering differences in the lease.

I continued paying what I had paid before, with the additional money purely going to principal.The recast to a lower amount was purely to reduce my committed monthly payment to a point that I could get my property to cash flow if I had to move out (job loss, etc).

Many first time investors don't realize that by getting into the management they are getting another job.