I've found this to be super helpful: When someone inquires about the property Thank them and Send them the pre-requirements (Income, credit, no evictions) and ask if they meet them.

@Mitchell RosenbergYou can analyze median income of an area.

It doesn't cover any loss of income due to your rental being repaired.

After selling one and using a 1031 exchange to buy a fourplex in Chicago, he reduced his interest burden by 20% while boosting his net incomes by $1,500 per month.

Whether or not he is solely using the rental income to pay off the property or not, he has the ability to pay down a mortgage efficiently. 2.

Again even if you have great credit as you start to add more credit cards, mortgages, auto loans to your credit you can also be viewed as "High risk" due to Excessive trade lines in credit or higher DTI - debt to income ratios. 

Nonetheless, I am not out to impugn anyone's intentions and I do understand (as Jay rightfully points out) that the self-employed (my situation for the past 20 years) especially run into times in their lives when conventional lending sources are of no use due to limited reportable income and other factors (such as when, for example, you retire in your 50's and begin to live off of your lines of credit, etc.). 

Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.

Purchase is ~$500k and rental income will be ~$100k.Also rates may go down resulting in increased cash flow via a refinance.The answer to your question is there are a lot of different ways to make money via RE investing, but it used to be easier to find deals that work.  

With your Fico and down payment, all you need to do is make sure you pass the debt to income requirements.