I wouldn't consider buying real estate if I didn't have $160K cash in hand.

Hello all, I do interior design and I am an active real estate investor.

If you want to offer a "rebate" of some kind after they stay up to date for certain amount of time, I'm more inclined to go that way, but in general theres no real good reason to put yourself as the owner in the middle of the utilities unless they aren't metered in a way to bill directly.  

My clients are mainly real estate developers, PE funds and individual investors doing syndications and my core skill is in real estate valuation / due diligence across real estate asset classes. 

I am an investor myself and also own a real estate brokerage with a hyper-focus on working with investors.

Don’t forget to network and educate yourself through podcasts and local real estate groups.

BTW, QuickBooks (either version) lets you do full-blown real balance sheets which you need if you're doing a partnership.5.

A city worker who's also a real estate agent

Admittedly, I am not one that typically finds paid mentorship very valuable, but I also respect that my degree is in business with a focus on real estate, and my first job out of college was in real estate (so it is a little hard for me to take my 20 yrs of knowledge and rewind it to try to view mentors from a completely fresh lens).A couple points: I view mentors, especially these expensive ones as a catch-22. 

Local Real Estate Investor Associations (REIA's) also are a great place to network and find a mentor or someone to walk you through getting started.