Dave Van Horn is a collegue of mine and I am glad that he was able to point you in a direction that helped you feel better about your retirement planning. 

I'm a commercial mortgage broker and would love to connect and discuss some financing approaches and strategies for this acquisition.

I was just reading Mark's book "The Tax & Legal Playbook" this morning and it specifically had a "critical warning" (page 31&32 in Chapter 3).

So, Benjamin, if you're American I would give that some thought.Below is a link to a forum thread in which I outlined why, you can read if it'd be helpful. 

Most real estate investing books will answer this question, and there are a lot of blogs about the topic.

But to date, I've just set my rents at a rate that accounts for me having to pay the water bill - and informed the residents that each year I'll increase the rent based upon my expenses (including water), so keeping the bill down helps me to help them.But one problem this could cause is if increasing the rent to cover the water bill then places your rent above the market rate.

Would this be a feasible plan?

What im hoping to gain from this group is knowledge i cant find anywhere else, i hope to meet people that i can help and people that can help me, I hope i can form good friendships on here, and i hope to find my first rental.

Take it one step at a time and use the forum to help you with the steps.

This is a nation wide issue but just want to make sure you realize.