The first pillar is avoiding unnecessary and risky activities (don't drink and drive, insurance generally won’t cover your poor decisions) and take good care of your investments - these simple steps will help you prevent lawsuits before they even occur.

Do you have a high turnover rate with all the college students or do you try to avoid students when screening for tenants to get a more long-term renter?

But it is only 6 unit building, having a resident manager seems quite unnecessary or difficult to justify.

How do you screen prospects?

If you were to concentrate on learning everything there is to know it could conceivably take 6 months to a year to consume along with properly researching your market.Learn your market, finances, expenses, cash flow, tennat screening, PM screening, state landlord tenant laws, etc. etc.You are at stage 1 in a 100 stage learning process, slow down.

Also put in some nice recessed interior lighting as well as exterior lighting, both a security and cosmetic improvement.New fence (there was nothing previously)Screen Shot 2017-12-15 at 6.50.20 AMMy new secure, patio sliding door - an earlier security weak pointScreen Shot 2017-12-15 at 6.50.05 AMThe plus side (if there was such a thing) to Harvey is that I was able to get the other two bedrooms rented out as coworkers had become homeless (their apartments had flooded).

Are they screening tenants, what’s the rules on that?

Was there anything that stood out as a red flag (given hindsight) during booking/screening that could potentially help prevent the same problem from happening again?

I have a triplex in a c-d area (rent 700 for a 2/1) and I was wondering how others are screening tenants.  

They would screen the tenants and then gave me the options of whether or not to consider the tenants.