. :-) Being nicey nice and good to others is wonderful sentiment until it takes away from your own life and family.

I can echo the sentiments regarding Autumn Property Management. 

I can't say I disagree with sentiment here.

@Jeff RonningenThank you for the thoughtful response and I agree with the sentiments of most on this forum in that this is a great conversation we’re having.

Granted, this can be a learning experience about how to harden rentals properly, but it often creates all kinds of nostalgic sentiments that can flare up into conflicts with the tenants.The usual scenario is that the tenants move in, live as tenants do, and the newbie landlords go back in and find delicate stuff, or meaningful stuff, or stuff that they didn't even know was meaningful to them damaged or painted over or disrespected in some way, and then the newbie landlords get in this forum and moan about how tenants just don't respect their landlord's property, and they get ten other newbies commiserating and telling them that yes, yes, yes, they're right, and their tenants are bad, bad, bad...and of course this can lead to all kinds of poor decisions.

@JB B.I kind of have the same sentiment as @Scott M. in this post.

Market sentiment is the main driver from what I see and hear. 

Mike - Coming from a 1-STR-so-far total newb I second your sentiment.

In case I ever come across something in that area :)P.J.I agree with your sentiment that off-market is the way to go in this market, but would take it even further ... mailers can work IF you are mailing to a list that is selective and generally difficult to put together.

Real estate (along with lender sentiment and loan availability) is cyclical, so while this may work every year for 10 years straight, it's also likely not to work for a number of consecutive years when the real estate cycle is in contraction.