I rent market rent and keep it there and if something happens in the local economy where the market rent still holds but is having some fluctuation due to a amajor source of local industry failing or something else; and that tenant stays, then I keep it the same if an annual increase would harm the investment or hurt the vacancy rating.

My biggest obstacle right now seems to be finding hard money lenders or other ways to finance with almost nothing down.Mike

And with regard to your insight into the othe issue that i did not expressly bring up, you are right though, this is my second biggest dilemma in how to get started is how do i go about doing it when i am on this expensive island.

My biggest competitor is also one of my best friends!

Ha I feel I'm in Real Estate Investing 103 instead of 101.One thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to dry up a mentor's time by asking every question you have when starting out.There is PleNTy of information out there to get comfortable with REI so I suggest you learn what you can before seeking out a mentor.Here are the best sources I've found:1) BiggerPockets (Congrats your past step #1!)

The biggest thing I see on BP is people wanting information from other investors, on questions that cannot be answered from people in other areas.

But none of my rental basements are near that size - the biggest is just over 600 sq ft. 10K might be high; measure the perimeter wall lengths and multiply the total by the numbers I supplied earlier to see if your quotes make sense.

My primary source of income is my 9-5.

Up until this year I carried around a $25 cell phone I bought off ebay that's biggest feature was it went "ring ring".

I think he is a solid source of information and advice and he spends a lot of time looking at different markets around the country.