One stock I purchased because of advice from one of these phone calls was for an oil energy company that I researched afterwards.

Don't just put a body in there to put a body in there, you wont have the time, energy or money to evict at this point.Take cost to remodel plus cash flow to the bank with your asking price, if you can get a pre approval to buy the property than present your offer with what is needed to spend on property.It took me a year to get the bank to take my offer, once a month I would stop by just to say high, they had other offers, but then they would go to the building find out what a disaster it was and either walk or change the offer, the bank always said no, why you ask, because not one of the offers came with a pre approval, unbelievable, cash talk BS walks.The Bank I received the loan from looked at the remodeling numbers than market value after completion, I took the banker on a tour of said property showed the my written plan and bingo, he says this is a great deal.

Our units are 1,100 sq ft, all hard surface flooring, solid surface counters, S/S energy star rated appliances, in unit W/D, screened lanai, high ceilings, loads of storage all with an contemporary open floor plan.Had been researching this for  over a year.

If you have some $30k "pigs" in the midwest and they burned to the ground, it'd cost more to rebuild them than they'd ever be worth.

I would ask my dad about lifting the trust but I was burned about 15 years ago when my grandmother gave me about $90,000 to buy a house which I did in Kansas City.  

I could see either side, but I take all my energy (or anger) and put it into prepping the rental unit.

As an example I worry that investors just getting into some TX markets will have diminished returns due to low energy prices. 

Or combine it with some land divisions and value adds it can be pretty neat returns.. and as passive as they get.. the only threat of course is fire and other than the Tillamook burn back in the early 50's forest fires on the WEst slope and in the coastal mountains are rare. 

That is not an investment, it's a charity and you should mentally burn that money.

You can search their site, great group, high energy women (and guys are welcome, too).I'll post more info on my newsletter (which I finally got out today after several month's hiatus).