Some banks and lenders will cut you off at 6-7 even if your DTI is below the normal percentage.

HUDuser.org is great for vacancy rates, but cross-referencing with local market reports is important for more context.For job diversity and employers, LinkedIn or regional economic development websites often provide insights.

This journey that we're all on can be lonely, especially when it comes to balancing W2 jobs, kiddos and real estate investing. 

Is it wrong they tell the investors if asked to say they are "partners", or "contractors" just bidding the job? 

Get that Summer job that you can pack away paychecks in order to launch properly.Best of Luck! 

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

As others have noted, it's not perfect (no software solution will be), but It does get the job done.

There is always SOME manual work, but you can cut out a lot of the back and forth-- definitley.

Long answer: Let your tenants do their job, which is paying off your mortgage. 

I personally recommend checking Columbus OH - lots of job growth, population growth, and major companies moving and developing here.