Been there and done that numerous times.

My biggest issue with this appraisal is that he used a fixer upper that had recently been foreclosed on and a short sale as comps for a nicely remodeled home, when there are numerous remodeled sales in the neighborhood selling for $60,000 - $70,000 more.  

Your bookkeeping system can tag income and expenses with a property ID or use subaccounts to keep track of income and expenses by property.Since you are a sole proprietor, there is no issue with co-mingling funds and using the same checking account for both personal and rental activities, but, it is much simpler for record keeping to have a separate checking/savings account for the rentals.I have charged stuff on my personal credit card for my rental properties, because I get "rewards" for my charges.  

I've been interested in real estate investing(particularly buy and hold for cash flow) for some time, but always been hesitant to jump in.I've read numerous books, listened to almost 100 BP podcasts, been to some local REIA meetings, but I've yet to pull the trigger on anything.

"Low risk low reward, higher reward means higher risk." 

***I know I deserve to reap the rewards.**** You can too.I look forward to learn more from BP and to source more money so that I can continue my journey.

I work as an appellate public defender, which is fulfilling work but not so financially rewarding. :-) My goal is to buy my first property in either of these two markets.

They don't seem to want to pay me if I have a vacancy, assuming no risk, so I don't know why I'd reward them for the upside. 

LOL.Done right remote sales can be a lot of fun and rewarding for all...

These types of jobs or professions have many things in common I'm sure.Not only do you have a high degree of technical proficiency with numerous protocols but there is almost an "art" to employ the proper action and do so in, not just a timely manner, but very quickly, in an instant.