For the upcoming 2015/2016 academic year, we have raised rents by $10/month and hired a service to come in once per week to clean the common areas.3) When you rent by the room, you have a relationship with each of the tenants/roomers, but there may not exist any rapport, let alone a relationship, between tenants.  

As always, I'm just a voice on the Internet, and this is not legal advice, only my opinion.

You could also have a google voice number take the calls.

I have a list of addresses in my target area.I have the budget set for my first batch of yellow letters.I have an google voice account and vm to start recieving calls and a script that I will follow when screening prospective sellers.What I don't have is a good letter.

Their knowledge of using Google Voice is surprisingly limited.2.

Ditto for it being agent owned..my buyers want nothing to do with that.Now Renae, I went the same route i.e..cards, bandit signs, driving the neighborhoods and tracking down sellers(MASSIVE waste of time-fuggehdabout it)etc...and found them to be inefficient or if they produced the occasional seller, they weren't motivated enough..While I don't know your financial situation, there are 800 #'s and ways to do direct mail that are fairly inexpensive...you'll just have to do some googling....you can get a voice mail for $10/mth and get good lists for under $100 as well as being able to mail direct from your computer....if these mehods are still out of your price range, then find a better paying job(I don't mean to sound so brusque) so you can afford to do direct mail...

That being said, I know it can be a slippery slope but I believe as a friend you need to voice your concerns.  

@Jack Douglas my primary concerns are a) I am operating in the state of MD, b) My husband has his real estate license, c) I/we are not trying to start a wholesaling business for the sake of wholesaling, we are trying to unearth otherwise unavailable opportunities I guess the no brainer thing to do would be to get on a few wholesalers lists, but that would be the easy way and I typically prefer to reinvent the wheel.I would love to hear the thoughts of two voices I have come across time and again on this topic in the forums: @Russell Brazil and @John Thedford Thanks again!

Do you have voice mail, call service, receptionist, or do you live answer?

I'm not familiar enough with the areas, but I did a quick google search and found this thread from a a couple of years ago that may answer a bit of your questions.http://www.trulia.com/voices/Home_Buying/Kingsgate...Just from reading some of the comments, I think it's like some other areas in and around Washington, that were a bit "dicey" years ago, but are now hidden and affordable "gems" because investors and others will find them; purchase them; rehab them, and flip them to a different type of buyer.