In our case, it would be possible to rent the upper and lower portion of the house as separate units (main house and basement apartment), and lenders were willing to attribute market rent for both parts of the house (even if it was 25% less) when calculating DTI on subsequent properties.Try talking to lenders based on the market rate for a 4-bedroom house (or a house with separate basement apartment if so setup) and see if they will assign a market rent.

He attributes his success to his mentor. 

If you do not mind me asking what would you attribute to being able to quadruple?

If you have that those attributes and the business acumen, you'll do the best going down this road.The second revolves essentially buying all those things mentioned in the first option.

If you have or will receive equity in or title to the property, the rent is not deductible.Interest - Business interest expense is an amount charged for the use of money you borrowed for business activities.Taxes - You can deduct various federal, state, local, and foreign taxes directly attributable to your trade or business as business expenses.Insurance - Generally, you can deduct the ordinary and necessary cost of insurance as a business expense, if it is for your trade, business, or profession.Read More at: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p925.pdf And http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-S...

@Ayodeji Kuponiyifor replacement reserves I use $250 per unit per year but that can go up depending on the class and property attributes. 

Realtor networking and getting my absentee owner/direct mail going are my new goals.I like breaking up the lists by attributes, ListSource offers that pretty well.One last question!

Hope to make great friends and contacts here.At this stage my interest is less in investing and rather in my personal project that I hope to implement in spring or summer of 2010.I am a complete newbie as far as real estate is concerned but have other attributes which I hope will compensate for it while I gain experience in this field.As I have lived in many countries and always wanted to be flexible I was never really interested in acquiring a house of my own up till now.

Marie PoeActually you can attribute it to my crummy spelling and Safari's bias (apparently) toward "medicare" over "medicaid".

None of which I would attribute to anything I learned at the "training".