I’d recommend doing something in the evenings and freeing yourself up during the day to build your network, shadow someone more experienced, research as much as you can about your market and attend as many community events as you can and practice working the crowd while you are there.

You could push some equity with just a few improvements over a year or two.

I would love to get any critiques or suggestions for improvement on my screening/lease-up process below.

By the time the 90's rolled around, things did improve but there were still so many builders that did shoddy work.

Would a lease option saying I just cover the property taxes and property improvements for him work?

Is this common practice on Chase's front?

Simple and good practice for a new property manager like your self.

@David Santore - I shoot for replacement value (just the improvements, not the land).

What I could see making MF worthwhile is value add, where you increase total rents by a significant percent (due to improvements you make), thereby greatly increasing the value of the property.

The best part - you can apply it to whatever you wish to improve on (Faith, Family, Job, etc).