When you're less involved, costs always add up and when mistakes are made (and trust me there will be plenty) by your subs or contractors, it's best to catch them early on than wait until they are all the way done to have to tell them they did it wrong.  

About two weeks ago we bought a house. Knowing it was full of trash and has been empty a while. We got a good deal on the house, but knew it would take alot of work. It is in a rental neighborhood. This is a 900 sq ft...

I made the mistake of making the rent due by the 10th of the month.  

Perhaps you might cull the worst performers from your portfolio and replace them with better performing properties.Just some ideas.

GeorgeBad idea period; A new car is the worst investment that can be made, you’ll end up with payments on something that does not produce money, but cost money, then the value of said car will drop dramatically and by the time you get done paying it off, it’ll be worthless, you could have used that money to start investing.Buy a beater for cash, save every penny you can by not buying shinning things that “DO NOT PRODUCE MONEY”.

Make no mistake this is not a matter to take lightly, I'm not going to just give you the "just do it, rah-rah" pitch today.  

The worst they will say is no...

You also have to deal with these contractors, which is probably the worst part of investing in real estate.

-What we could have done is to just buy a house to live in so I just need to put down 3.5% (again FHA loan), rent out my first house and buy more properties with the extra cash...Hopefully we know about about mistake 3 before making it!

No need to be in the darkBy maintaining control of the credit report, a renter doesn’t have to take the risk of others making mistakes.