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.  

The first thing I would do in your shoes is call the PM company and get somebody to explain to you how they justify $200 to replace an air filter.I've never seen anything this egregious, but this is precisely why I do not use a PM company.  

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

If you work with them, they might let you step into the debtor's shoes at the reduced balance.They get a better debtor (hey, that rhymes!)

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.

See BP Podcast 229 for more information.If I were in your shoes, and depending upon how good the friendship was, I would ask her for a portion of the profits she's made thus far, since you gave her a "friend's rate" on the rental and she's technically violating the lease, it's only fair.However, since you think she's not going to be honest about what profit she's made, I would assume you really aren't very good friends, just very old acquaintances.Regardless, I would terminate her lease at your earliest opportunity and begin short term renting it yourself.

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?