One popped up in my neighborhood and several people in the neighborhood informed code enforcement and they shut them down.If you and your wife are good with living in a smaller place to pay down your mortgage faster than that seems like a great idea to me.At some point in the future you could always move back into the main house and rent the smaller unit if you ever wanted to.

I've read several books and am getting conflicting info.

There are very few rentals in this area... they have been at 100% occupancy for the last several years. 

Being an investor in several different states, I prefer a national lender so I can always go to one lender to fund all of my deals, no matter where it is. 

The first property you get will have closing costs and need probably several thousand dollars in a "general fund" to fund your advertising, maintenance, unexpected CAPEX, initial vacancy, etc.

@Joe Benson I own several properties in the Providence area and have done both, managed myself and used companies.My experience with companies has been mixed.

Hello,Over the past several months I have been working on a condo conversion deal in Point Loma, San Diego.

Feel free to let me know if there is a better venue for this inquiry.I was trying to enter an investment into my BP Profile, but ran into several issues....(1) sometimes I couldn't get to the [Save] button (it was below my screen and the scroll bar would not let me scroll down that far, (2) when I finally figured a way to see the [Save] button, it wouldn't Save.

I have spoke to the homeowner several times and he's willing to do a rent back agreement.

An appraisal would give you a value, but will cost you several hundred dollars.