Agree with the other advice.After each round of placing a tenant reevaluate your screening criteria and tweak it when you don't have an opening for next time.I like to find a tenant then tell all the unsuccessful ones that a more qualified applicant was chosen. 

@Evan PolaskiThere’s an old expression about numbers and it’s GIGO - garbage in garbage out.Numbers in a spreadsheet can be tweaked incrementally but produce large differences in returns.At the end of the day, it is the skill of the underwriter and not the excel formulas that really count.

To get a remotely usable IRR, you have to model out so many assumptions to generate free cash flow numbers that one slight tweak can yield crazy swings to your final metrics.

I will tweak the strategy to have more balance between equity and cash flow.Relying on appreciation or equity build only is not a great strategy.If you have vacancy for 1-2 months, or big capital expense, you will be negative cash flow for the entire year

When i mention "somewhat hard to setup" and it cost money, i meant exactly that - automatons.For me (again, my opinion), CRM is not just a place to store contacts (Google Contacts is awesome for that).For me the automation part, and all other little perks and tweaks which save you time by doing it behind the scene of your behave. 

And I feel the ideal portfolio can benefit from the diversification of both.Directly owned properties are great because they give you maximum control and the ability to tweak them exactly how you want.

But even tweaking the numbers slightly generates huge differences, and these tweaks might be very reasonable.

This is just how I've been going about it recently but if anyone thinks it could use some tweaking I'm all ears.

If you start slicing into a bunch of different categories, its tempting to tweak each one down just a little and end up under estimating total expenses.For post-purchase accounting, there is your cash flow and there are taxes.

I’d rather take a property down the street where I can tweak the revenue and expense levers than an out of state property where I need to trust that the property manager is putting in good tenants and I am not subject to getting oversized “automatically authorized” charges like replacing a $100 toilet for $500.