I'm not sure if this guy even kept books for his car washes because when I asked for the financials, the listing agent literally emailed me a piece of paper that had some numbers written down so I told him I wanted copies of the actual income tax returns that he submitted to the IRS and he sent that over so that is where I got the numbers from.

And yet, I continue to run into folks being taken for thousands of dollars at a time!

Even if you don't need that rental income, make sure you are using a lender that allows it to be used.And if you dump thousands of dollars into a property to improve the value....but that lender isn't using the ARV...then why even use them?  

Unless you have a vast network/sphere of influence to keep you afloat, making money being an agent can be really tough and you can literally go months without a paycheck.If you want to be licensed and learn it while you have a W2 job that's different.  

We have had to cover several thousands in normal wear and tear because we don't have good videos or a move in condition report when they moved in.

Does it have enough reserves, any special assessments on the horizon (could be extra thousands in additional fees), when is the next big expense coming (like roof change, elevator replacement, etc), the rent cap and what rents options are available.

then a long stretch of consistency. i have built up a little portfolio that i'm happy with, and while I don't have life changing cashflow, my tenants pay my mortgages down by several thousand dollars each month. 

Now we have all sorts of fake lenders trolling SM sites promising the moon telling folks what they want to hear and scamming them out of small and Big dollars some of these folks lose 10s of thousands to these folks.. with the  line  " Hey its going to fund next week just need another 5k for some BS item"

My 21 year old son literally has worked 2 months at w2 in his life making very little money (at pet boarding place) but has over $200k from entrepreneur and side hustles that he has creatively recognized.   

They stole thousands from a colleague.