They show top market rents on rentals so that they can try to extract the highest purchase price.

But... based on what is often discussed, I think many on here would suggest it is not too hard to extract equity from a rental.

As such, layman conversations which praise purchase prices like "10% on the dollar" or "50% on the dollar" are more meaningless than meaningful.  

That being said, if you want to do the test campaign of 100 letters/postcards (which is a good way to get your feet wet) and if you're expecting to see ANY kind of tangible, meaningful response from it, the quality of the copy and especially the quality of your list (along with how well you've filtered through the data) can and will have a major impact on your response rate.Yes - you can send out a direct mail campaign "just for kicks", but if you aren't taking the right specific actions along the way, you're going to be disappointed in your response rate, which will only deter you from taking further action (because you'll have the wrong idea from the beginning about the effectiveness of direct mail as a marketing tool). 

Healthy, Ohio by the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law means that indiscriminate and warrantless government inspections of rental properties are unconstitutional nationwide, and that unlawfully-extracted “rental inspection fees” must be returned to the rental property owners who paid them.

At your current wage, I think it would be very hard to save and have enough to invest meaningfully. 

I am also hoping to build meaningful business relationships in the REI community.

For instance, if all my tenants were employed in oil/gas I might get nervous when I'm filling up my truck for a measly $35.Now I'm not saying discriminate against employment type but it could be another factor in assessing your current potential risk.I think most people don't have the luxury of diversifying their savings in a way that will be meaningful in 30 years (due to income and growth) and allow them to retire care-free, certainly not early.  

You probably want to do more meaningful things than this, but there's also some liability for the PM.  

I usually see them stay flat for awhile and sure the last landlord to extract the max from some poor tenant will see that tenant leave and a not quite as desperate tenant replace them at a little lower rate.I'll admit the lack of "widespread" inflation for so long is killing some of the anticipated appreciation.