And that's just a 2 unit, obviously the numbers creep closer to actual investor-numbers with a 3 or 4 unit pumping in more rent.

It's a fairly unregulated space (charging grandma $750 to puts around for 3 hours, after moving the old box from the horizontal sensor, which was the only problem with the garage door to begin with), so some combination of carefully reading reviews (you have to actually read them to make sure it's not 200 fake reviews), and maybe not giving them the full contract all at once, is in order. 

They are probably the only courses I actually have used after graduation.

Everyone thinks they can paint but there's a big difference between a professional paint job and a non-professional one (the latter usually actually damages the property instead of improving it). 

I actually aim for not having any one real estate investment make up more than 1% of my net worth.

We actually just had several go in on Livingston ave on the west side where I'd not normally think would be desirable, but they look great and really brought the block up.So I'm a huge fan personally from seeing them go up in my own area.  

The equity is actually what you are paying for the property.In this case let's look at the numbers that count,...the current numbers.You have about $500k or more in equity, which is buying you a property that's worth about $700k (I went with the lower PV. 

There are books written about this details but keep you focus on the end goal.The first deal turns theory into actual tenants, actual maintenance problems, etc. 

Was it actually an emergency, or did they just say it was an emergency?

There are actually quite a few Americans investing in real estate in Japan, but more I think that invest only in the US.