Pay attention to blinds, ceiling fans, hardware, systems.  

That being said, I don't want to reinvent the wheel and blindly search when so many of you have already had the successful experience of acquiring your rental properties - so I would greatly appreciate hearing your suggestions on how to find residential (hold to rent) properties.Next topic to tie into this is what makes a better investment rental property: single or duplex?

There is no possible way to make money.Hell I didn't even include paying off the inspectors to turn a blind eye to all the other problems.This is why I don't consider wholesalers as REI's. 

But even if the seller asks to pass that along to me, I'd be happy to pay that price to rest easy knowing that I didn't undertake my first real estate transaction totally blindly and with no training.  

In addition, having someone facilitate the exchange for you is not free.And if you screw up on the timeline, you could pay for the exchange facilitation and then still have to pay the gains tax.It is not a blind decision.

If you blindly indicate your acceptance by signing any papers shoved at you, then you have no one to blame.

Emily,My wife was fielding all the calls and she always pointed out the positives. the home looks beautiful and i purposly installed mini blinds so that the visitors do not see the street while looking at the rooms. because it's older home ~60 yrs (common), there is drywall and plaster and it's amazingly quiet. so, they can't hear the noise at all.Jon,I have 5 more in that suburb and they all go from $1,000 (no basement) to $1275. i also looked at the comps before i purchased the home, and we noticed that the street where this house is located gets around $995-1100 per month because the schools are 10x better.the other side of the street gets up to $950, but has really bad schools.John K,I do not have a picture of the garage for that house.

Basically you go in blind plus it seems the plaintiff always wins and pays what the judgement amount was which is more than the home is even worth.Any info would be great, is this a dieing out strategy?

New wood laminate flooring w/transferrable warranty, new water heater; newer wood blinds and custom interior paint; fascia just painted, & new solar screens just installed2 "recently" solds 06/04/2010 Sold: $128,856 04/19/2010 Sold: $120,000 Thanks for reaading this.

He is blind and dependent on his daughter and nephew to help with the money order and mailing, so I've overlooked him being a day or two late when he couldn't get to the post office or he lost my address somewhere on his computer.He insists he mailed the Nov rent on 11/1 but has no receipt for the money order.