I am up to 33 rental units scattered sight around town, mainly focused in 2 areas: west Rockford and the Mid-Town neighborhood.These neighborhoods are #7 and #18 on this list:http://www.arrestrecords.com/the-25-worst-neighbor...I have 0 business debt and own all these properties outright.

Contractors are in very short supply here, so expect unusually severe cost overruns and time delays due to them being scattered and thus hard to pin down for job completion.

Right now my efforts seem pretty broadly scattered, and I'm struggling in determining where to focus first.

However, the investor knows that if 2 or 3 of the broker's deals blow up, their investors will scatter to the winds and they are out of business.

@Atwan Kwan sorry for the scattered post.

I was feeling scattered as well so sold my 3 least faves over the last 20 months and couldnt be happier. 

I have 12 units scattered through northern Ohio.The very first one was bought with the guidance of other people experienced in the local area, it has been my worst performer.The rest I did a lot of thorough in depth research from macro through to micro on a whole range of different metrics to find the best properties.

@Michael M.Cost is important but you want to vet the professional that you are working with.With that said - the best way to get a good projection of what the professional fees you would pay to a tax accountant/advisor is to interview a couple and get some price quotes.Your tax profile is more complex than the average taxpayer as you have properties scattered across different states.Are any of your properties inside of an LLC?

Honestly I just wish zillow could become the biggest site snd have the power to steer the industry, right now there are so many sites people are scattered, and like I said before agents have you for months once you sign so they have no incentive to perform just list and forget it, it's like fishing, eventually you'll get a bite.

I learned fast and ended up doing well in real estate but certainly had my struggles along the way, and looking back I realize I missed so many opportunities to put money into that compound interest account, partly from being scattered, or not knowing what I needed to be doing, or often from being a perfectionist and over-analyzing rather than just putting things into action.