By the time he covered eviction costs, lost rental income, and re-renovated after tenant turnovers, any potential gains were erased.Seven years later, his properties had appreciated to about $130,000 each—a 62% increase on paper.

I'm a Navy public affairs officer, so I move every couple years, but I'm currently in Germantown, TN (near Memphis), and I've been interested in RE my entire life.

Since you are stating out in RE, I would say house hacking might be the way to go.

Re: your questions - 1.

Texas as a whole bans texas homeowners from re-financing their home to fund investment properties in texas.

I had to re-post in another post. 

Without the high leverage you reduce the top source of return in CA RE which is achieve via the appreciation on a high leverage property.  

Every youtube video I find when searching this problem involves someone replacing or moving an electric box that either hasn't been wired yet or is re-wired.

We then re-iterate how rent is paid for us (we use AppFolio).

Hello all,What have you seen re: water meters.