I bought my first two rental houses with a combination of using a HELOC on my primary and using my retirement $.

Data is sourced from a combination US census, zillow, and realtor

Do you happen to have long term % of gross rent of combined maintenance/repairs/turnover costs/CapEx  ?   

It's a fairly unregulated space (charging grandma $750 to puts around for 3 hours, after moving the old box from the horizontal sensor, which was the only problem with the garage door to begin with), so some combination of carefully reading reviews (you have to actually read them to make sure it's not 200 fake reviews), and maybe not giving them the full contract all at once, is in order. 

I have a duplex in cleveland with a combined 2,336 sq. ft.

It's a winning combination of direct access to industry experts coupled with building lasting relationships and get direct feedback on your strategies in small-group format.

The combination of its growing tech & healthcare sector, long-term resilience to climate change, and relative affordability makes it an interesting place to start our real estate journey.I spent a big part of my career in hospitality real estate consulting at a Big 4 firm, but I left to explore new opportunities and decided it was finally time to take the leap into real estate investing.

@Zach Denny - I agree - chances are the institutional lender won't be comfortable with an owner-financed 2nd and 100% combined loan to value.

Our combined efforts made the property appealing to buyers, leading to a successful sale at $99,000.

Acquire 8-10 rentals and then start paying them off, using the combined cash flow to put towards one mortgage.