Get a professional tenant and you could be in for death by a thousand cuts. 2) Not knowing your numbers - If you buy with the wrong numbers you can get in trouble quick. if you just assume that you buy for X rent for Y and pay Z in mortgage, insurance and taxes you will be in for a big suprise when things start breaking etc. turning your good investment into a money trap3) Related to number 2 and a fairly common one if you spend all your profits and don't reserve when suprises hit you will not have enough money to cover it4) Not keeping up the property - No one wants to live in a dump, a slum lord attracts slum lord tenants and this can eventually catch up to you5) Speculating  - This could go very well or very bad.

I just need a basic Guideline on what WON'T pass via a VA inspection , so I'll know which Houses to Avoid and not even consider, since they'll be more Inclined to not Pass, with X Y Z repairs being neededQuestions:1.

You know Los Angeles real estate is getting expensive when Jay Z and Beyonce are getting outbid."

.], Local RE: You need to know your local real estate market and you can learn that by reading the local newspapers (both general and business) and one of the best ways to learn what I found to learn what's going on locally is by following newspapers, journalists and towns on Twitter, also head to your local town hall and speak to the P&Z dept., EcoDev and other dept's to see what's going on in the town's you want to invest. 

The rent z-estimate is usually fairly accurate.

For example if I wanted to find a house for purchase that fit into the category of X amount of square feet and Y number of bedrooms and Z number of bathrooms based on the homes that had the highest number of sales and\or shortest sales cycle over the last couple years, where might be a good source for info like this?

TK tends to exists in high volume areas so expect questionable ethnics from *liars*, I mean "providers"1) People talk in these local markets 2) Contact a number of property management companies 3) After you get over "what areas do you have your doors" and any other intro questions 4) Ask the property management people "would you take on a property at address X,Y,Z and if not why?"  

I have already spoke with P&Z and they have given me all the guidelines, etc.

They will then defend this price by saying something like "current rents are below market, they could easily be raised to X, Y or Z"  or, "the landlord is presently carrying the utilities, you could put them back in the hands of the tenants"These are both improvements to the business which should improve the free cash flow the business throws off.  

Originally posted by @Richard Z.