First their is never any tolerance for emotions where business and money are involved.

Sounds like you did a great job of not getting emotionally invested and "making your money when you buy".

The podcasts got me hooked and the forums have been a great way to dive deeper into discussions and learn even more.

@Tim Hertz Congrats on your Duplex, that seems to be the common theme for Newbies.Your are correct, minimize risk by purchasing right and for me keeping emotions out of itThank you Tim.I have another offer I just put in on SFR, this one requires no rehab, essential a turnkey (not by real estate definition) I offered CASH (they say cash is king)Crossing my fingers Take care Brother 

Is there a website or a resource that provides operating cost and rental income for multi family homes to help an out of state investor decide if this is a good area, and if the props are worth taking a deeper look at?

So from reading several posts regarding LLCs and REI, it seems pretty obvious that you don't need to, nor should you, start and invest using an LLC until you are much deeper into the game.

Money is an emotional thing but you need to take your emotions out of the equation.  

This was a test case for us – so we could use the experience to decide if we wanted to dive in deeper.

This is committing financially and emotionally to an actual real life decision.

So there you have it, the emotional value to you (taxes aside) of having a home mortgage paid off is $226/month.