I would budget for an experienced mangement company and let them take care of the maintence calls and the background screening of prospective tenants.I would rather be focused on income productive things and not spend time with my tenants and concentrate on raising money and leads.  

All I can say is there are more than 1 way to value a property, IE. by its gross income, location, comp. sales, Etc....What you are describing has happened as a result of multiple short sales taking place in a concentrated area and I feel has definitely caused somewhat of a bottleneck for prices to run up but should only be temporary....would like to hear others weigh in on this...best regards,Chris

Everyone has thier own preferences but I prefer to concentrate on volume rather than huge checks.

You then concentrate all of your education on this specific area.

I agree with Ben you can get a a good house 3 or 4 bdrm in a nice area for 100-125 all in and rent for 1200-1500 where I concentrate.

You are an investor with a RE license, it should be very easy for you to cut him off you, and get another agent if you wants to or if it is very important, so you can concentrate more on your investing/rehabbing deals than spending the time selling the properties by yourself.Good luck.

Everyone should be concentrating on getting leads.

Do not try to learn everything about all phases of real estate investing, concentrate on one area.

Are there other types of properties we should be concentrating on?

That is why I am concentrating on flipping homes on the OC.