As for a lot of the "your returns will be better with more leverage" that is typically true if your unleveraged yield is higher than your cost of capital.  

First and foremost I have tried the typical solution of friends and family.

Sales agents typically don't have a lot of experience screening applications.

James, from a contractor's perspective I don't typically recommend re-facing cabinets.

Tenants typically stay that long because (a) the rents are way below market and they can't give up a good deal, or (b) they are bad tenants who enjoy the freedom of living under a weak landlord.

An "owner's title policy" is purchased (typically) by the seller for benefit of the buyer. 

How it typically works, you would have to come up with 20 percent.

Essentially you create a parent LLC with each property in it's own secondary or child LLC.

Imagine you bought a property for $2M.The land (excluding any structures) is valued at $400K.Since land is not depreciable in the eyes of the IRS, we subtract the land value from your purchase price to get your depreciable basis.Your depreciable basis is simply where a cost seg engineer starts from when allocating your eligible assets into either 5, 7, or 15 year property.In the scenario above, your starting basis would be $1.6M since your basis = your purchase price - the land value.Having an accurate land value is essential to getting your depreciation/bonus depreciation calculations right.This is the starting point for any cost seg study that you do.

Essentially there are investors out there that can build a large enough portfolio with little debt that can cash flow enough for a great life.If you want to scale to many properties then you will want to consider leveraging your existing properties.