BP - My reasons behind writing this post are to track my own progress, get other peoples best practices, and give updates along the way so we can all learn.I am doing my first direct mail campaign focused on self storage facilities in Minnesota.  

But still no real estate and no big fat bank account.

That unit is a little run down and is just storage for the current tenant.

If the rental is a residential unit, then you need to treat it as such whether he's living there or not.If the rental is a storage unit, then it would fall under different laws.What @Aaron Mazzrillo said makes sense.Everything's negotiable.

Unless you are able to open up the closet space where the water heater currently is (assuming it is indoors) and use it for more living or storage space creating value of usable interior space, then I don't see why you would want to spend more money on tankless as opposed to the less expensive tank heater.

The problem with a small spaces/ tiny houses is storage.

Once that deal is complete, I'd like to make the jump over to real estate investing and really focusing in on creating passive (as much as possible) residual income.I have no personal debt other than my mortgage, and I plan to work while getting started with this investing.I'm very interested in mobile home parks, self storage, and any other similar types of investments.

I was thinking along the lines of vehicle or equipment storage?  

Currently only two residents have washers and dryers, the others just use their alcoves for extra storage.  

Can you add $50/mo for "covered parking/storage" to increase revenue.