My brother in-law is killing it in Fresno CA, but he is defiantly working hard to make his money.

Say what you have to say, lay down the law, and get off the phone.

If so you need to double check as for primary residences balloon mortgages may not be allowed under current laws

He was telling me about one of the new laws that was enacted this year that in order to avoid capital gains tax when selling a “personal residence” you NOW have to have lived in the property for 8 years.

Whatever your answer is, it will get you thinking on if and how to proceed into the commercial real estate world.All that being said, my general answer is YES, it is a good strategy.First step should be to start educating yourself about commercial real estate, how its valuation is based on profitability and not strictly on comps, how to leverage the power of partnerships to get large deals done through syndication, how job and population growth start playing a big role when evaluating markets to invest in, etc. 

Not sure about your local laws, but in Ohio you can garnish.

Okay I will be investing in a house at the end of this month with my father-in-law.

There are no laws that make you have insurance on your rental property.

@Valerie Copeland yes, perhaps that is a "wiser" decision for the reasons you listed but I do not think you should be deterred from analyzing and (possibly) putting offers on properties strictly due to the fact that either it was no tenant or has a bad tenant.

I just did a quick google search and Baltimore County requires all rentals to have hard-wired smoke detectorshttps://www.baltimorecountymd.gov/News/PoliceNews/...In addition Baltimore REIA has an article which indicates that the city requires hard-wired smoke detectors as well:http://www.baltimorereia.com/smoke-detector-law/If you read the Baltimore REIA article carefully it lays out when battery powered detectors must be upgraded to hard-wired but of course you should not solely rely on their article.