My name is Shane Sanders from National Data Research Inc.

You don't need to micromanage, but I'd call and make sure things are going okay every week or so for a while to ensure things are on track, especially around time to pay rent.They posted a good post about finding & interviewing a PM on the Bigger Pockets blog HEREDid the tenant actually leave?

This ensures that you have the contract.

While you can gain access to the full MLS data only if (as far as I know) you are a licensed Realtor, you are then subject to the state's Real Estate Board regulations and are also required to pay MLS dues, Real Estate Board fees, and any association dues (Natl Assoc of Realtors, state Association, local Association) fees as well.

Not all counties have good online access to data (.CSV data would be minimum)2.

Let's face it many (most) people misinterpret a lot of what they read.By doing it the way I do, it ensures that many readers will go back and re-read all of the previous posts to see what the fuss is all about.

If you want to do it yourself then try http://zillow.com or your county auditor's website for recent sales of similar houses.So after you have the comparable sales data you will want to estimate the cost of repairs to the house.

If you pull someone's credit and let's say they have had a foreclosure 3 years ago so you're skeptical, you can do a financial verification report that will provide you with 12 months worth of income, cash flow, assets, and line item spending, that tells you if your tenant is approved for your rental amount based on the data.

Based upon this data we are looking at a projection of over 50 Major Disasters to hit the US by the end of 2006In addition, we are still recovering from fires in California, Colorado, New New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.Yet, we are still going to have to deal with past Hurricane damage.And we still face dry conditions in various parts of the United States that produce fires and we have yet to step into the Atlantic hurricane season that lasts from June to November, with the peak season from mid-August to late October.On top of all this over 350 tornadoes have been recorded as of April and this could be one of the most active and deadly seasons in historyFor more data see: http://www.spc.noaa.gov and To compare from 2005 to 2006 see: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/index.htmlAs an investor we are tough to research property titles, market value and market trends but one major area that is left out is storm trends.Why storm trends.

If you are working with a builder, putting together one of these, it is a good idea to ensure that all the funds from the loan are run through a title company and all bills to vendors are paid out by said title company, who then collects Lien Waivers.