It was a fight for sure, but we were able to use the STR income because we had good history of it on Schedule E.

I decided at the beginning I only wanted to rent to people who were gainfully employed (or students that had gainfully employed parents), had no criminal record, decent credit scores, no charge offs or bankruptcies, steady & stable job history, and the like.

What documents do they require, what credit scores do they allow, how do they verify previous rental history, etc.?

You could do that for 3-5% down.. live in it for a year to meet typical requirements for use… then move into a new house, and ‘voila’ - you bought your second (multi-family) rental for 3-5% down instead of 20-25%.It is entirely possible though that you will face debt to income issues on your first rental if your lender wants to see a year or twos worth of rental history before counting your rental income to offset your debt payments…so beware of that.Otherwise you may have to look at creative financing… maybe bringing in a money person where it was a short term investment for them, like “I’ll give you 8% on your money (versus the 4-5,% you could earn from the bank CD) if you will partner with me on this purchase.”

While the tenant had a good payment history before my purchase, I'm unsure about their timeliness.Lately, I've encountered several issues with this tenant.

Those that “don’t see” the benefit to a party likely are unable to comprehend that their own perceptions, history, experience, and motivations are not “universal” in scope.  

This can include:Reviewing Lease Agreements: Make sure you have copies of the current leases and understand their terms.Checking Payment History: Review the payment history to ensure they’ve been paying rent on time.

You could be overlooking some knuckleheads doing damage to the place - I've thought about doing the same thing for my daughter in a few years.

Hello I dont know how to do all the rennovations I see my brothier doing at his rental project, I just feel like at a base leval I dont know anything no matter the history and work, how am I going to buy my first deal when I dont know ****  pleas help me dial it out of this hell  refering to the rehab skills mainlyhow to deduct all deffered maintances and otherwise I make 1k a mouth but what happens when a major rennovation takes place

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