There are probably seasoned investors who can figure out creative ways to make most any deal work but my feeling is that new investors should be more selective about the deals they choose to take on since they have less experience in mitigating risk and estimating costs beforehand.I'm actively looking for my first property and one of my criteria is that I will only buy a house that needs mainly cosmetic updates and even then within certain limits.

Another question : I was visiting houses in Penn Hills but several people have a quite mitigated advice about this area.

Just trying to mitigate risk and increase chances of profit in the future and while stumbling across real estate I realized it’s something that greatly interest me and I enjoy studying, researching and participating in it.

Obviously, if you have a really good PM you can mitigate some of that. 

Most, but not all these bad outcomes can be mitigated with better due diligence.

Those are good strategies that will give you some leverage and potentially help you strike a better than average deal.At some point, you may want to consider purchasing rent default insurance to mitigate costs associated with lost rent and legal fees.Good luck!

Obviously it is code to have the ability to escape both bedrooms in the event of fire, but could this be mitigated by a sprinkler system or is this effectively a 6 unit apartment building?

It will probably take me that long to mitigate the cigarette smell regardless.

I know mistakes are almost inevitable when first starting out, but I'm doing my best to mitigate them.

While there is some risk as identified above, the estoppels are key for mitigating that.