Hope things get back to normal routine financially for you.There are handful of meet up groups on real estate in the area. 

I know your eager to get your feet wet, but I see routinely how things can go wrong in this business in a hurry.

The signage also provides a phone number for neighbors to inform on bad behavior or other issues that might arise, providing you an additional pair of eyes.Develop excellent and consistent systems/procedures for handling the routine stuff.

What is a conservative routine repair estimate, and what is a good vacancy factor?

Even a single "routine" inspection at any point during the tenancy probably would have prevented this.

Rob K Good stuff, rob. we have a weekly list of stuff she does for each day. she gets in the routine. we do have to remind her sometimes. the bedroom/bathroom is hit & miss.we also teach her about $. she needs to save as well. we're very fortunate - she's a solid straight A student.what you're doing for your daughters is priceless.

It could be one or more replacement properties and the amount needed to equal $655,000 or greater would be the purchase price plus routine selling/buying costs.

You don't want to come in and disrupt everyone's routines or you may find you are losing tenants.

Routine maintenance is roughly 10% of the rent pretty much everywhere.

The big national lenders have reputations for screwing up all the state-specific stuff on a pretty routine basis, which in addition to potentially screwing up your transaction, can actually harm the chances of your offer getting accepted to begin with.