But by spreading your cash around and taking advantage of record low interest rates you reduce the risk of single investment ownership.  

Will also do reduced rate inspections for investors. 

This reduced our overall preapproval amount.Has anyone had experience showing that your unit is easy to rent out?  

Fill up costs for 275 gallon tank that is 1/4 full still means you put in about 200 gallons or more; when prices crept to $4 per gallon, that's an $800 fill up that lots of tenants won't be able to cough up, or if they do the rent might be short ;) And it will need to be filled multiple times during a normal heating season; this past December, being so warm, obviously reduces that a bit this season. 

Don't stress over what address should be used for return purposes.

either move in with someone or have someone move in with you to reduce your payments

When tenants do disconnect them it is surprisingly easy to catch them as many take the entire detector down and never put it back while others remove the battery and unplug the detector.Our insurance company frowns on disabled smoke detectors  - not sure if they would use a disconnected detector to deny/reduce a claim, but I prefer not to test them.We are experimenting with a new detector which we can "see" with our building monitoring system.  

Also finding a broker that provides you with leads may work well for you, the broker will take a large cut but you reduce the time spent finding leads.

This will reduce your downpayment amount, as it will reduce your costs.  

Between the stress of potentially having a vacant property each year when the lease renews to having nightmare renters or even having a big repair that is needed, I don't know if I'd be able to truly ENJOY having a rental.