There are plenty of poorly maintained, low priced rentals in our area that we don't try to compete with.

Mostly, these buildings are well maintained and many investors see this as a “value-add” investment opportunity because through renovation and common area improvements, the property can be upgraded to Class A or a Class B+.

But I want to make it into something students would love, study area ect. each unit is a 2 BR 2 Bath and the average price for this type of unit is around $499.  

I did it reluctantly at first but maintaining control in the property management process is important. 

However, with that said assess your workload and see how much time you really have to spend on it while achieving your other collegiate goals for the semester.With that being said, if you think it will be too grueling I am sure there are lots of books, websites, forum posts, investors in your areas, etc. that you can "study" from to gain the knowledge you need without the intensive course that you will be graded on and whatever the cost per credit comes out to be.Again, it's a personal call.

I've been studying It for years now but am so afraid of stepping out and falling on my face.

Great info...Im actually studying for my RE license now.

They also pay for administrative costs such as updating the HOA home owner’s directory, billings and collections, covenant enforcement, routine legal costs, maintaining a web site, posting HOA governing documents on the web site, administrative staff, and other operational costs.

One issue is the bad folks out there that will buy these terrible properties and them sell them to un suspecting forigners who then get blamed for not maintaining their props.. when in fact they got swindled... :) but when your talking about 20 to 30k houses being over priced and no value then your talking about the worse of the worse in housing stock.. and I am sure these are ghetto type locations. or war zones.

The other thought is, is the white kitchen hard to maintain and keeping it clean.