Essentially gambling that the value of your leveraged assets is going to increase over time.  

Apply chosen limits to all applicants.)But sometimes even good tenants can turn into bad ones. 

Oh, and instead of an up-front deposit, I have chosen the route of "additional rent" each month for the pet.

If I lived in a more expensive area, I would probably have chosen either a different strategy or invested in a different market (probably the latter)I work with overseas and out of state investors that have money to invest, but don't want to have all their funds tied up in one property, so they would rather buy 3-4 diversified properties with a mix of rentals and flips than buy one property.

That roof job was not cheap.It's up to you if you want to gamble a low ball offer w/o knowing what kinds of sins are underneath that roof and tile.Can you get work done reasonably or will you get held up by high priced contractors?

Usually I won't make multiple applicants pay my screening fee, if my initial meeting is good enough where I accept that tenants appliance and fee, I also have them submit their security deposit for holding, which I don't put in the bank until mutual acceptance between both parties; however, as each adult is paying $53 I wouldn't make applicants pay who might not be chosen.

I did a lot of research beforehand, and while not all of these were the cheapest quotes, they were carefully chosen.

I am not saying people do not make money in stocks I just see those more of a gamble.

I came into Real Estate while researching different career choices that would allow me three simple things. 1) Have a career/craft to fall back to at any given point in my life. 2) Be my own boss. 3) A means to meeting/building new relationships with other like-minded individuals.I read the majority of Real Estate for dummies, once I identified that Real Estate Investing may be the chosen field which would open doors for me.

Although I may be a little biased :) Fort Wayne has been really good to myself and a couple of BP'ers here that have chosen to invest here too!!