I've heard the horror stories from landlords about how the tenant they were evicting poured cement down the toilet, played hammer darts in every room, ripped out the copper, or left piles of garbage for the landlord to clean up.This hasn't happened to me - my last tenant just left untidiness that took me about an hour to clean up.

Brokers can get hammered from collateral assignments with various investors, splitting a mortgage as well.

Are all hammers the same?

Are you going to swing a hammer? 

It's the only way you can analyze and hammer down your numbers.

I don't want to approach him out of the blue and hammer him with questions.

I think you'll end up doing about the same in each market, so I would start hammering down to the types of investments you want in each of the markets as that is where you will see your biggest swings in ownership experience. 

I estimate repairs by swinging hammers and doing some work my self, viewing other properties, and getting multiple quotes from contractors.

Right now my day job limits the time I can spend swinging the hammer on the project, so that's a factor.

@Casey Mayton BOTH because you can take a SBLOC out against your stocks to buy real estate at a low rate.I just learned this recently and haven’t hammered out all of the details but the thought of leveraging stocks to buy real estate appeals to me, because you never actually sell the stocks.