@Edward James smith theres a great meetup at The Black Diamond in Spokane Valley, third Tuesday of every month at 6:30pm. https://reinetworking.com/Reach out anytime, I work with a lot of investors in the area and would be happy to discuss ideas.

Hey @Sidney Duquette so I am not a fan of buying properties that can't perform with the hopes that it will build equity to offset the losses.

Gotta work on that reading comprehension, Drew.The second and third sentences of my post are literally:"I lived in Detroit for 5 years before moving out of state, and during that time, I built a strong network of contractors, handymen, and other boots-on-the-ground contacts.

One of the biggest challenges for everyone involved is being on the same page about the actual time required for maintenance.DIY landlords rarely properly track their time when it comes to property management in general - tracking their true time invested in maintenance is where they perform the worst.Investors that hire PMCs are rarely any better at understanding the true amount of time maintenance takes.

Once you have a market chosen I'd connect with a realtor/wholesalers in that market through BP or Facebook groups to get a first hand view from them on how their market is performing.

Run through some of the features you will need like setting up a property, moving in a tenant, receiving rent payments, and publishing online applications.Pay attention to which platform feels the best to you as you perform these functions.

Leveraging equity is big part of buying the second then the third.

Selling an existing, well-performing asset has some risks.  

That would be a helpful addition to your plan as you would further reduce your cost of living.Also don’t forget from that $600 you are planning on getting in cash flow you have taxes, insurance, maintenance, capex, and vacancy to consider.With two homes, you may want to keep that extra $20k as an emergency fund rather than spending it on a third property and then be left with no emergency funds.

Additionally, they will likely ask that the appraiser not consider the third unit which is not legally zoned in the valuation.