@Wendy Carbone,Re: Ownership ...Remember that even with an umbrella policy, your personal possessions are exposed.When savvy professional litigants (lawsuit-equivalents to professional tenants) see multiple properties in your name rather than a trust or an LLC they know there's probably an umbrella policy to go after and, if not, the owner's personal assets.

Bigger Pockets is obviously centered around the entire broad spectrum of real estate.  (As far as I have seen), the actual real estate agent side of things is somewhat scarce. What blogs or other resources do you use ...

In my mind, it's equivalent to renting a house and finding out the previous owner took the furnace or hot-water heater.I don't have a comparable unit and the tenants wouldn't want to move again, anyway.

sale so the cost was less than half the HD or Lowes equivalent.

What you want basically is a criminal search equivalent to the ones done for managerial or mid level employment background checks and they're just not cheap.

If you have a mortgaged property and a clear property; if each property has an equivalent monthly cash flow, the mortgaged property will be less of a tax burden at the end of the year, therefore yielding a higher effective cash flow.

Some states require that brokers be at least 21.High School Diploma: Most states require that you have your high school diploma or equivalent.Experience: To get your broker's license you'll need to demonstrate 2-3 years of experience (in recent years) as a real estate salesperson, or show that you have the equivalent experience (such as having been a real estate attorney for a certain amount of time.)Residency: You must be a U.S. citizen.

A couple of cap ex events occur in year 10 that eat up the equivalent of several years’ worth of profit.

It should come to no surprise that a SS# is the equivalent of a skeleton key to a person's finances.

That leaves flipping (and/or working part or full time as a RE agent) to build up experience and capital, or buying cosmetic fixers at retail and making up for it with sweat equity (zero labor costs) and patience, or trying to work a development project via FHA 203k (or its 20% equivalent rehab loan) if you can get such a deal under contract with a skilled mortgage broker to close it, or waiting until your eminent real estate downturn materializes and risking being wrong.