Rents will go up and your biggest mistake was to buy a nice house in a desirable neighborhood.The real threat is buying in the hood, leveraged up to the gills, maybe even with hard money, tenants are bleeding you dry, while you are writing checks to attorneys and contractors.Milwaukee is getting a lot of attention lately: cash flow is still better than most places and appreciation is stable at 5-8%.

Very informative and nice!!

It would be nice to have someone to partner up with if possible or just someone that could offer me advice on this path to financial freedom.

That transfers certain equitable rights to the tenant/buyer--nice for them, not so good for you. 

The really nice place I live in now in San Jose, CA, required really tough criteria.  

Whats stopping you from just walking away to pursue another opportunityNothing.Your going to need some skin in the game, even if its as little as 10%.

Find a way to hit your goal and in 5 years or 10 years when you look back, you'll be sitting on a really nice portfolio. 

It would be nice to have a category for those reviews so I could search for product only.

There are really nice areas all around Youngstown and some higher end burbs.

These are great ideas, and it's nice to know I'm not alone.