You must learn to communicate with possible residents, ethically and legally screen them, juggle the calendar, create leases and collect rent.

The real question has to do with  if you are prepared to do what's required to learn the foundations of real estate investing, strategies, tactics, financing, title, escrow, marketing, deal structuring, develop acquisition systems, investors, associate networks and management of properties, rent collection, cash flow, taxes, etc.This is all took me a lot longer than one year, but you might be very dedicated. 

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

Buildium would help with the expense tracking but also enable PM tasks such as lease renewals, maintenance requests, rent collection, etc.

We use Stayfi to collect guest emails and it connects to Constant Contact which we then email them coupons and promos. 

Gross income is what you collect from customers.

Hi @Allen Moore, I’m my experience with renting SFH’s in the Chicago suburbs, section 8 tenants have worked out way better for me than market rate tenants in terms of the duration of the tenancy, the rent level and the collections.

It gives all the creditors a chance to collect the debts owed.

What strategies are you guys implementing to optimize this cost? 

This one is controversial because they will do a deal, and you may collect a fee.