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Pros: the cabin will be able to house our entire family, easy process to refinance.

It's a competitive market and most of the people that get in trouble here are ones that buy blindly without actually figuring out the numbers, etc.You'd be surprised the number of times I get asked after month one if their electric bill of $xxx or whatever is normal, and the thought running through my head is "how did you not  check things like that before you committed half a million dollars to something?"

Which was surprising because when I bought it, it was on the market for over 4 months.

Perform the same task in each app to ensure a fair comparison.Load a property with pictures and details.Market that property.See what your marketing looks like from the public's perspective.Submit a fake application to see how easy the process is.Run a credit/screening report on yourself.Enter a maintenance request, assign a vendor, and attach a fake invoice.Enter charges to the tenant's ledger.Enter recurring charges and automatic late fees.Sign documents electronically.Run owner reports.After testing a few apps, one should clearly stand out.

Many would be surprised to learn that about half of all states allow discrimination based on marital status, meaning a landlord can reject applicants that are not related and not legally married.As always, it's important to know the laws of your jurisdiction.

We make people take photos of themselves holding their ID and then I also meet them in person for the showing - at least for my units on the NW side of Chicago.I've never heard of these testers, but I am not surprised. 

It isn't easy, but you'll learn a lot about underwriting from the process and know the ins and outs of the entire model, which makes using it, troubleshooting it, and adding to it much easier.

Fees should be clearly stated in writing, easy to understand, and justifiable.

Closing costs + rent ready costs + lease out costs - those you need to be compensated for and new investors are always surprised that they can add up to 5 or 10 or 15K.