Today i cant drive past an apartment building without trying to see the deal that lies within, i will pull off the highway if i spot a building i haven't seen before (drives my wife nuts) i keep a camera and a note pad in our vehicles.As @Joe Villeneuve alluded to above come up with a plan on what kind of investor you want to be, and work that plan tweaking it as you go and keep moving forward, everything else will start falling into place. 

I write up a document showing the sellers all of the work I would be doing on their behalf and show them all of the places where they could fall out of contract or things could get seriously complicated without professional help.

I have to fall in line with the others on this.

Some times they only hear from me 4 months from now when I am crawling around in some nasty half falling down mess (with someone who is not interested) and I think "This is great for Dan".

Yeah it is brick, but it has this skim stuff over it and that is falling off. 

Right now there is definitely more risk of them rising than falling further.

He has already had to void the lease renewal for one tenant/friend who could not maintain clean standards and has just renegotiated a significant price increase for the second tenant/friend who is falling into the same issue - can't clean up after his dog, clean his bathroom, etc.The point is, without a lease to use as leverage, my buddy would be SOL and left to his own devices to negotiate with the neanderthals he got into bed with. 

I think you lose more $$ by missing out on great opportunities than potentially falling on your face due to some correction that may or may not come 

Simply follow my advice, prepare, and let the chips fall where they may.

However, in this case it would make it to the probable category as the rental property itself most likely falls into to the non-exempt category of assets protected by Texas aw