The biggest thing to me is buying in quality areas that will increase in value over time.

@Chris Kay beleive you can do DSR loans without a job as they qualify the property, not the borrower.You'd still need 20-25% down though.That's where you have a decision:- Pay down the mortgage, setting yourself up for a future refinance to free up your VA Entitlement.OR- Save up for your next acquisition.Only YOU can make that decision as you have to be comfortable with the increasing debt-load risk and the additional time to manage everything.

The shorter the prepayment term has an impact on increasing the rate.4.

Asset manager role would be to give advice on property that could be value added and increase the income on a property by small or big tweaks.

Assuming the Oakland rental market continues to remain stagnant/competitive with newer buildings going up, is property appreciation the only way to increasing wealth with my building?

First, increase staff size.

EXAMPLE: a local HC has a single comcast email address for their entire office - mysteriously, they seem to be always losing emails and asking us to resend multiple times.The good news is they finally increased their max rental amounts a few years ago, so they are now more competitive. 

You could have given notice on 12/7 that her rent was increasing on 02/01.

@Shawn Tuma & @Chris KayVery difficult in today's market to cashflow putting 0% down:(5-10 years ago it was possible, but prices have increased faster than rents.Your best bet is to find a property that needs work, but will still pass a VA appraisal/inspection. 

Richmond certainly would have some potential in pulling trades from, but coming from Lexington, you might face an added trip charge on top of the service provided.Over the past few years, rents have increased nationwide.