Take care of them while your earning income if possible to reduce down time.

I plan on getting licenced during some downtime from school just to have it under my belt.

The bad news is were in the summer slow down time now and less buyers then last couple months.

Thank you for sharing this post.I am new to the Real Estate world and to BP I have been fascinated about REI since I bought my home and started working in the multifamily business with a management company and have been trying to learnthe business listings to BP audiobooks and just started reading books when I get some down time in my schedule.What was holding me back was lack of support.

Aside from the tax benefits listed above, they get to enjoy the properties with their families during their down time.

I try to be respectful of the tenant's schedule, but I also try to minimize the unit's downtime.

Plus, you have the year of downtime while you build, foregoing all of the revenue for that time from a property that you could have purchased.  

One cost to consider is downtime.

You will have more maintenance cost and down time when that happens.  

Buy something where the rent coming into you is more than the cost of owning it, which will include taxes and insurance, and downtime between renters while the unit is turned, and sometimes roof replacement, etc...