For some reason, none ever mentions that aspect but it can totally derail your plan of becoming a money making machine with the governments guarantee.  

TxEagle,There is a book called "How to Build a Real Estate Money Machine" by Wade Cook that covers basically the same concept as Lonnie, but with SFHs.

If the hose or machine was leaking then that's on tenant.  

Thanks to Federal Reserve machinations, record-high excess reserves, and other unprecedented political events, we're in uncharted territory and basically anything can happen with respect to real estate prices.

You're going to have to either establish a close circle of wholesalers who can feed you off-market deals at a reasonable price, or you'll need to establish a powerful marketing machine to find the deals yourself. 

When I turned the furnace for the first time, I realized that something was wrong: it sounded like an out-of-balance washing machine and it frequently turned off and on (every 1-5 minutes).

You could add a communal laundry room with coin fed machines. 

Purchased a few years back, rehabbed, rented for a year or so, hoping to have it sold in the next few weeks. they're building a city dump a few blocks away and i want to unload it before i have to deal with it.i'll tell you what i did. figure out how to find the auctions in houston https://dailycourtreview.com/ ($20 a year or $2 in quarters in newspaper machine in front of where they have the auctions)Also, the websites of delinquent tax attorneys Linebarger Goggan Blair and Sampson, at http://www.lgbs.com, or Perdue Brandon Fielder Collins & Mott, atwww.pbfcm.com, contain lists of the properties set for tax sale by the taxing units they represent.searched for houses near my current place research them (google/zillow/trulia/redfin/realter/har).comdrive by the houses analyse what you're willing to spend on itfind one or more that you're willing to invest indo a foreclosure title search a few days before the auctiona few days before to make sure it wasn't removed from the auction block, thus wasting a few hundred dollars.also to make sure there a no outstanding liens on the property that could cost you moreregister for the auctiontake a big wad of cash that you've been saving for years and get small cashiers checks 1k/5k/10k/etc to the auction and watch the other biddersthen bid..The property i got was starting at 30K... someone bid 30k, someone else bid $30,100, then i walked behind them and said $35k. maybe i scared them off by bidding 5k more, maybe they didn't want the property anyway.some of these bidders for $5 at a time trying to maximize their returns. i was new, and i'm 6'4", so maybe intimidating?

@Sam Sendgraff You probably won't find 2% in significant numbers anywhere besides North Tulsa.1.5% in West Tulsa, Midtown, and East Tulsa, and possibly older areas of the suburbs.1% for newer construction or updated older properties in the suburbs or south Tulsa if you get a good deal, although that is getting much harder to do.Completely agree with @William Robison - a 2% property might look like a cash flow machine on paper, but can easily become a pig in the long term.

I only have tenants be responsible for changing light bulbs, batteries, changing furnace filters (while realizing the probably aren't), changing the lint sock from the washing machine, mowing and trimming shrubs and snow removal.