And what happens if you get a bad tenant who destroys the place in the first year? 

And definitely sit with a real estate attorney because if they have destroyed your property you need to know the steps. 

It will take 6 years to buy another home and by that time you will have had a tenant destroy the other place and lose all that cash flow.

So, yeah, if your destroyed by it, there is that. 

New roof, new gutters, new water heater, trimmed back trees that destroyed roof What was the outcome?

And worse, many are in the process of destroying their reputations because of how they are handling it.I agree that one has to get started, buying the first few deals. 

The Unethical thing that you could not do that may be considered illegal is if you in some way destroy or devalue the property since it is an asset to a senior lien holder and they may suffer as a direct result if you do any damage.

The reason for this is because their prior landlord basically ruined them as they destroyed him.

A mediocre PM can destroy a good property.Start by going to www.narpm.org to search their directory of managers.

A tenant destroyed a garbage disposal with a shot glass- the next thing in my lease was tenant payment for repairs not coming out of security deposit and specific terms for hourly labor charges.