Also, when you obtain your insurance it will be land lord insurance and your insurance company should  provide you with some liability coverage (300k?) 

Lord knows there's enough construction to allow you the time to do that here in the metro area!

They are not friends or relatives and often do not receive gifts from their "land-lord" as intended. 

We had the utility between tenants and it was a bad deal for us as we had several tenants fall behind on there bills and utility company transferred into our name auto even while they tenant was living there and fell behind on there rent then they continued to stay through eviction running bills up and we was not able to shut off as we was not a utility company and land lords are not allowed to take it away here in Ohio so we got screwed and still trying to chase them from job to job attaching wages its been years.

Not really, but good to read is the Nolo press land lording books.

This assures the highest percentage of hassle free land lording, in my opinion.

And on my subdivisions I am currently building I do not record CCR's or create a HOA.. its only mandatory if we do a PUD... since I am building all the homes and ( praise the LORD almightly ) they all pre sold we are in and out of 27 homes in one year.. and I just leave the folks to self govern themselves.. there are actually a lot of buyers ( at least at these price points starter homes here  350 to 400k) that prefer NO HOA

Get a professional tenant and you could be in for death by a thousand cuts. 2) Not knowing your numbers - If you buy with the wrong numbers you can get in trouble quick. if you just assume that you buy for X rent for Y and pay Z in mortgage, insurance and taxes you will be in for a big suprise when things start breaking etc. turning your good investment into a money trap3) Related to number 2 and a fairly common one if you spend all your profits and don't reserve when suprises hit you will not have enough money to cover it4) Not keeping up the property - No one wants to live in a dump, a slum lord attracts slum lord tenants and this can eventually catch up to you5) Speculating  - This could go very well or very bad.

Try Ken McElroy, Dave lindahl, Joe fairless, jake and gino, olde capital and Brad sumrok.

@Jeremy Mundy @David Bell @brad brosmer - what do you know about the 16 units for sale on the north side of Huntingburg?