The millionaire real estate agent is a good book if you are actively working as an agent because I really breaks things down in how you can build the systems to grow your business which i found very interesting. 

This team, especially the property management, will make or break your investment ... it doesn't matter how good the numbers look on paper, without a good team in place, you will never see those numbers.

I agree it's hard to say which event/"straw" will break the camel's back.

When I can I try to do seller financing of the 20% down, so getting a property that breaks even looks nice. 

How will your break even approach allow you to cash out?

Lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, etc are opportunities to return phone calls, respond to emails from clients and other agents. 

There are soooo many moving parts that makes up the machine that is a successful real estate investor...and with every part there is a chance that your machine breaks down.  

Our problems is this, even though we muster up the courage to get everything fixed, I have a feeling this tenant will keep on giving us headache one way or another, by either breaking something and asking for us to fix it or asking the city to do unscheduled inspections (which they have done in the past) to point out random problems giving us a contest source of stress.

At the end of the year charge/refund the difference in the actual charges.Use the previous method but break out utilities for the units on each shared meter instead of the total cost for all meters.Break up each bill as it arrives. and divide it by units on the meter This would add a lot of overhead to the work load.For water, gas and trash service I think it would be acceptable to share the costs based on sqft.I just dont know what the common practice is and my experience isn't in commercial offices.

Maybe there is a comparative loose piece under the house I can break.