The one that was a pain was the one that a real estate agent was involved

Though before doing so I would talk to someone in that area who has done it as to get an idea of how the local zoning office works - some zoning people are a pain to deal with. 

Knowing who is going to close, knowing who is going to be a pain in the but to work with, knowing who does or doesnt prep their clients for home inspections, knowing who uses good lenders and who uses a lender who will screw up the transaction...further knowing what lenders use local appraisers who know the market, and who ships in cheap out of state appraisers to save $100 and will appraise the property low because they dont understand the market.

@Tony Tonev Great advice here in this thread.Thanks for the refresher on how painful SFR and small multifamily RE strategies can be ;-) I think you might be ready for the next level: commercial multifamily real estate (5+ units).

At a certain point, I can see the scales tipping to paying off the loans, but if you are in your growth phase, leverage is the name of the game. someone posted above on how you go through phases and no question debt is necessary to scale.and its a balance of those things and personal decisions if you want to Dave Ramsey it or BP it.. for me though and having a front row seat to the 08 to 2011 melt down and the 89 to 93 CA melt down.. thinking your protected when you have 75 to 80% LTV loans is just kidding yourself.. you have no equity.. in those scenarios  ... and exits can be painful if values drop even a little. and you are in need of exiting.. or your leveraged to the hilt and your cash flow drops by 20% most folks would be in trouble..    

Or else you open yourself to assumptions by folks.All buyers are left to think is the inside is truly terrible, tenant-owner relationship is bad, or something else which signals this is a distressed property.  

As a fellow Seattle-ite, I certainly feel your pain! 

To alleviate your biggest pain I highly recommend using the awesome tools provided here on BP.A few more tips to get started:Find and connect with other BP members that are in your area.Set up keyword alerts to be notified of the topics that interest you.Read Beginner’s Guide.Check out BP Podcasts.Find upcoming real estate events and meetups near you.If you'd like to tag someone in the conversation, type @ followed by their name and then select the name of that person that appears below the comments box.

If you do the design first and then try to fit it into a modular layout it will be painful. 2.

Through the painful process of elimination over the past 25+ years, we have found that strategically sending unsolicited offers to owners yields consistent and profitable results.Hope this helps.