Any other pros or cons to this method of investing for at least getting started? 

It is still early, but if you are still looking at starting up in Springfield, hit me up.

I am going to have to have my realtor make an addendum to the lease. the tenant has been paying for utilities up until this point. has anyone ever been through this?

Austin’s housing market has seen a nearly 23% decline since May 2022, according to Redfin.

The IRS won’t allow this as a legitimate deduction.No Tax Benefit from Self-RentEven if you set it up through an S-Corp (which is more complicated), the rent payments you make would be taxable income to the S-Corp.

Our plan is to use the "Sneaky tactic" and for the next few years, the plan is to buy a house that needs a little TLC, fix it up as we live in it and move on to buy another house until were tired of doing it or reach a decent income.

It's all about risk in the event of a lawsuit, which can also usually be covered by insurance.- If you decide to have an LLC for each property, creating a Management LLC that all the other LLCs "hire" to run their books, will allow you to only require a bank accont for the Management LLC.2) You may not be able to do a Trust.

Speak to an attorney to handle this.

Here are some coming on BP: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521-real-estate-events-...We have a list of a lot more investor meetups that I will happily share with you. 

Increase earnings, decrease expenses, save up, and then you can invest.