So being able to tell the differences will save you a lot of pain. 

I'm working with condos, and yes the HOA's can be a pain sometimes but the one upside is that there's no exterior maintenance, no roof to worry about, and most of the time I can call the building management first if there is an issue.  

Kinda of a pain but we figured out a system and could put one together in less than 1 minute so we moved fast lol. 

American Homes for Rent (NYSE: AMH) numbers for quarterly period ended June 30, 2015.. for 37,491 single-family properties in 22 states:Rents from single-family properties $137,818,000Fees from single-family properties $2,204,000 Property operating expenses:Leased single-family properties $67,823,000Vacant single-family properties and other $4,456,000 72,288 / 140,022 = 51.63%If you take into account "tenant chargebacks" revenue and "General and administrative" expense, you reach the same conclusion (51.69%).

I am more worried about builing wealth in the long run...everything sounds rosey here but I have never had a rental properties and some people I know tell me having a rental property is pain in ***.

You have to live through buying, rehabbing, managing rentals through a custodian to realize the serious pain that is.  

I'd like to get buy and hold property, but long term financing seems like a pain to get in my situation, so buying them outright seems right to me.

Were any of your properties wiped out big-time?  Or on the other hand did any of you find some great opportunities such as homeowners with significant damage they couldn't afford to fix who needed to get out of their ...

I feel your pain.  

Commuting to Redmond from Seattle is a pain in the ***, definitely look for alternatives.