I have over 10 years of experience making mistakes, developing solutions, and implementing preventative measures to ensure these risks are minimized.The more experience I gain, the more I see that one of the most essential components of real estate investing is risk management, but also property management, people management, market research, investment analysis are also essential (not in order of priority).Some specifics:My tenants (customers) are new families with 1-3 children. 

Thank you guys so much, I'll make sure to implement those tips!!

The rest should be pretty easy to document procedures and train.Next comes the issue of implementation.

The purpose of this post is to gather as many viewpoints as I can regarding 2 possible strategies that I am considering implementing in my initial REI strategy.

Anyway, couple of things...have a "back up" plan, as there's always a lag time from knowledge to implementation to making the cash, so unless you've already got a good amount banked to live off of, I think Ralph's suggestion is great...either get an internship or a job in a real estate related field (property management, title company, etc.) and use that to increase your knowledge while you begin investing.

I would also consider just taking the capital gains tax hit and implementing the cash in other ways.

I have even seen some landlords in the Bay Area implementing RUBS and have the tenants pay for water and sewage.

Strategic decisions are made together, implementation, I handle.

I work as a technology consultant specializing in implementing e-commerce systems.

. - As you mention impact fees for developers, I recently read an article about the city of Denver possibly implementing more fees for development, up to $7 per sq ft to fund affordable housing.