Principal Paydown:  Cash Flow:  Tax Benefits: Savings from depreciation and interest deductions.For a deal to make sense, at least three of these components—home appreciation, cash flow, and principal paydown—need to be strong.

I have strongly considered managing on my own in the past. 

@Timothy Frazier Yes, the only reason to use HML as a down payment is if the property is "mostly turnkey" AND you don't have the funds to renovate AND you have strong CMA comps from a real estate agent that supports that the fact that you are buying a property that is under valued AND your renovations would push that so that you could refinance.

If your property management company is good and has built an internal maintenance team which has set rates and had strong relationship relationships with licensed contractor which should keep costs in control, you should never need to shop contractors on your own I wouldn't think.So in short, our policy is give us your preferred contractors upfront if you have them, but then we work all tickets to resolution including dispatch, and payment of invoices.This is of course for operational expenses.  

My Insurance Agent has strongly recommended that I put a Construction Agreement in place with my Contractor to shield me from liability, etc. 

WE use the doors that have the blinds built in for the man door on the garage so it can have some light or privacy and or if it goes to the backyard because there is no slider same thing and we put that door on whatever room is going to be the office.. that way they can close the blind in the glass for privacy while they work or leave it open  buyers dig that.

There are a lot of markets with solid job markets, strong populations, solid rent growth, but when you are talking ONE property, unless you are considering highly rural areas, it likely doesn't matter.  

If the Transunion report verifies everything, and they meet my other criteria (credit scores, proof of income, background and eviction checks...) then we are good.In my 15+ years at this, I have found a very strong correlation of credit score and tenant quality.

I focus on finding deals that meet specific criteria, and I always keep my underwriting conservative to make sure the numbers work even on a worst case scenario.Right now, my big goal is to land my first property, ideally 20+ units in Florida, and build a strong portfolio from there.

Which I also would tell you that if you have trouble managing finances and poor credit I strongly advise against real estate as its capital intensive and if you struggle now managing money having more money and real estate only exacerbates that issue.