if you buy something in a random out of state market where you don't have a team or a network, and use 100% borrowed funds, which is what it sounds like you are proposing, you will lose money.those funds seem like they're free, but they're not. 

They are almost always guaranteed to overpay for properties and lose money in the end.

@Tiffany Makiya- you wont want to refinance your priamry home and lose the 2.875%  rate .....I would suggest  getting a heloc in place for  as much as possible to use for your remodel and funds to use in your  investment plans ...... see what the highest  heloc  you can qualify and obtain .....many heloc lenders have  max limits on helocs  like  200K  250K some  are  higher

Too many landlords lose tens of thousands with common mistakes due to lack of education. 

By listing and renting on the OTA’s like AirBnb and VRBO you never lose the ability to occupy the property because they are not facilitation a legal lease agreement.  

You could easily lose more in rent not to mention headaches and end up with a worse result. 

As someone who went to college and then got into real estate shortly thereafter, I think an emphasis on communication and accounting would be what I would recommend to focus on.  

This destroys that logic and I will lose a lot of money.

My criteria is pretty simple - with 10 to 20 percent down, can I manage the property and not lose money and will there be reasonable (or better) appreciation over the next 5 to 20 years? 

Is it worth it to tell the property manager to just delete the tenant's debt so the owner doesn't lose out on the late fee?