Knowledge,I'm currently working on an apartment rehab in Baltimore, as well as concentrating on some purchases in PG County.

Until recently, my income wasn't quite as good, we've concentrated on paying off our credit card debt, and we spent quite a bit of money on improving our home.

Then concentrate on major cashflow properties.

If a concentrated location for your rentals goes south, they all will be impacted to some degree.

Is there something I can do to filter out these cases so I have a more concentrated list in my hands of real potential leads and not just garbage.

I would concentrate on building my team.

I used to concentrate on Kenner, Metairie, LaPlace, the areas that I considered to be "safer" than the city.

The inventory is now down to a more normal level and I spent a great deal of time in 2013 planning my business next move(s).....which led me to concentrating on flips.

Also, having predetermined what is important to you in a loan - speed, low down payment, no credit check, or low interest rate/fees will enable you to concentrate on the lenders and brokers that deal in those types of loans.One important caveat - If you have 25% down payment money available, a credit score of 720+ and the time to close, you will be able to score a long term low interest rate loan that will allow for a positive cash flow on a large number of investment properties.

The downside to it is that it costs a couple hundred bucks and you need to re-test at ever tenant changeover.When testing for lead-free an XRF gun is used to determine lead paint concentrations on different surfaces.