You'll find his cookie-cutter-template seven-page Web 1.0 beta website for his obviously smallish company, GH Plumbing.

If you don't have much equity and the house doesn't cash flow, you are then really banking on appreciation, and that's a gamble in my opinion.

I had never heard of that before and thought it was an interesting "outside the box" concept.I also did sort of a fundraiser/contest once where I offered my web development skills (a free website) as a prize for entry.  

Just like in the dotcom years, when some people thought the web would never make it because of wide adoption and security concerns ... a few years from now, we will be talking about it ... like we talk about the web, e-commerce, ... etc. 

Web portal to check on everything, real professional.

This is a bit of a gamble though.

If you were in the area or if you have someone that really knows the market in the area you could take that gamble and it may pay off but just as easily it could leave you selling for half of what you purchased it for in 5 years.Now my final disclosure, BEFORE YOU BUY ANYTHING in Port Huron you need to go read the new zoning rules that the local government has passed that no longer allows rentals in certain neighborhoods as well as the landlording regulations that require rental certificates and inspections.I do want to let you know that when I started investing in Port Huron in '09 I had hoped to buy bad houses in the Hospital / College area, fix them up and rent them to stabilize that community.

I've read IRS auditing guidelines (they're on their web site) and these specifically state that managing rental properties should be assumed to require minimal time.

Renting and tenant screening can occur via the web.  

Hi Ned,I  am a newcomer, gravitated towards REI after surfing the web discovering tax liens and tax deeds.