Be sure to read through The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing to help you get started.Also - here's a couple articles you might enjoy:The 21 Best Real Estate Investing Books Ever How to Rent Your House: The Definitive Step by Step GuideHow to Be a Landlord: Ten Tips for SuccessFinally -be sure to setup some keyword alerts - especially for "North Atlanta" so you can jump into local conversations.See you around the forums!

Given the market in DFW and a dearth of quality duplexes in the Far North Dallas area, it could be a great opportunity, depending on the location.

I'm in the San Diego (North County) area too and think we could work together.

The territory I am looking at is primarily an affluent area in the North Atlanta suburbs.Is this a smart move to secure such a location or does it make sense to focus in more distressed territories?  

Thus far I've not found an active market for notes here north of the 49th - perhaps its an artefact of the difference in mortgage financing, but more probably I just have yet to find the correct door.  

Degree in Business from the Univ. of North Florida, I am active in philanthropy,  I am a mother of 2 (a 21 yr old step son and a 15 yr old daughter), I bowl on a league, and I am the President of the PTA at my daughter high school.

I need a experienced Investor friendly Realtor whos area is  North Jax, who will work with me to find, look @ and buy a small home or multi family for my home base, then Ill be purchasing investment properties to buy/sell.

I'm from Covington, Louisiana which is about 45 minutes north of New Orleans. 

I threw you numbers into my modelling tool with the following changes:I used the ask price: 180Kmaintenance - 10%vacancy allowance - 10%Insurance - 1K/yr {rather be too high than too low}lawncare/snow removal - $75/mth,  $900/yrHydro (House) - $100/mth, $1200/yrWater/sewer - $85/mth, 1020/yrGarbage - $85/mth, 1020/yrMortgage: an LTV of 75 and 6.0% interest rate with a 30yr amortization.an opportunity cost of capital at 8% a 15 year hold period.Did not count laundry revenueThis brings your OE to ~1025/mth,  ~12,300/yr  ... an operating ratio of ~43% ... which strikes me as low, but wonderful if true.Just to be pessimistic, I added in another 2000/year of misc expenses to bring your operating ration to 50%With all of the above in the mix, I get a debt coverage of ~1.4 and a CoC of 10.5%  Which is passible.If you could purchase for 165 to 175K and the real expenses are closer to $12-13K/year, then this is will be a good investment with the following caveats:- I did not budget for upfront capital improvements that you would need to do at purchase;- Since I know neither the market nor the property, I modelled with no property value appreciation and no rent improvement.

I live in Fort Worth, but had the privilege of living in North Bay... met my wife there too.