Realized that playing with leverage is really a mental game as much as it is mathematical, and I wasn't mentally up to carrying a whole lot of debt, so nowadays, I just do what lets me sleep best at night.

**FULL disclosure, I also own a tenant screening company **-Too cheap-In a rush -As previous poster said, would rather have warm body and cash payment yesterday-They think their instinct is good enough (sadly, a lot of landlords don't start screening until AFTER they've had a bad experience)-Tenant was referred by a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend- The mentality of "Okay, applicant seemingly has a decent job (or nice car, etc.), so what else could I possible need to know about them?"

Sometimes I say a couple, if they are irritating I say well let me see, then I hold my hands up and appear to mentally counting houses moving my fingers, I make a big production of doing mental math and take about a minute get to my last finger and say well more than 10.

I am a high earner but I have a saver mentality: I like to say that a penny saved is more than a penny earned due to income taxes.If you 'don't buy a starbucks' - that's $4 in your pocket.To earn enough to get $4 in your pocket - you probably have to earn $5 or more.

Then when market crashed everyone said well that was stupid you should never invest for appreciation its all about cash flow.. then in my mind of one of the worst mantras ever came out  ( Appreciation is icing on the cake and its all about cash flow)   and you had a heard mentality racing to quote un quote cash flow Markets..

But if you're hiring a property manager to 'do all your work' then it's not passive bc you must "manage the manager" and they will come to you to make major decisions, which is mentally taxing.   

You have the right mentality though! 

I'm still battling the mental blocks, but you are an inspiration to all of us.

Macro issues seem to be a huge mental hurdle for a lot of investors but that is largely out of our hands. 

In my opinion, you should steer clear from buying a property with existing tenants... its not always easy to remove them and can be emotionally and mentally taxing but if you have to buy with tenants your first property and its a good deal then it may be worth it.