There is no "magic bullet" for marketing.

You need to bite the bullet and raise rents on the hold-over tenants.

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet for finding deals. 

Hi Michelle, A general help on strategy read my paper on buying rentals, linked off my profile 1st paragraph, How To buy a bullet proof rental portfolio.A 2nd help is if you are serious about setting up a system, team and set of local peers, you should consider joining the local REIA that I ended up choosing for all my local support, contractor referals, legal helps etc.   

I'm going to bite the bullet and purchase some bandit signs.

I know this may not be what you want to hear, but sometimes there are no magic bullets! 

Most of the poor reputation LOs have is probably because a lot of landlords do them on their crappy properties that they can't attract good tenants for, imagining that somehow an option is a magic bullet to make the tenant a better one.

Not sure if that changes any of your bullet points or not?

Besides bullet proof vests and mace spray is a tax write off !

Thanks John.What about passive investments in syndications...does your last bullet above confirm that you feel they qualify as well?