The Atlanta REIA has a monthly meeting in Inman Park, at the Wrecking Bar.

Also the regulations are disproportionately tenant friendly. they are thinking of introducing a no eviction law. imagine if the tenant does not pay/wrecks the house and you still cannot evict. about the housing shortage, there is about 8k new houses are being built now and 35k needed just to maintain the balance.

In short, I don't want to be throwing away 1500 in annual cashflow if I really don't need to, but I also don't want to wreck myself for an extra 1500 annually.

Sure they'll cashflow if the $400 rent is paid on time, has no evictions and the place doesn't fall apart or get wrecked. 

If not, one or two bad leak trailers can wreck your cash flow in a hurry on a master meter. 

If you walk in and the cabinets are wrecked, and then you try to get an adjustment based on that, they will likely reject it.

Transactions and years dont tell the full story, and there are no programs keeping track of the times an honest agent protected a client by steering them away from a wrecked property.

It's incredibly uncomfortable, nerve wrecking, scary, and when it rains it pours.. this is your monsoon. 

The home was a wreck, I only had a day to decide because it was in a very desirable neighborhood, and my call was I was not willing to risk the additional money.

Something about your first property is nerve-wrecking!