Michael Lauther, can you provide an out of state landlord like myself with a tip to find a reasonable and reliable handyman who can do almost everything?

This is acceptable to find a ball park estimate, but not reliable when pricing individual comps.

You need to have reliable people on the spot to take care of business if you intend to invest long distance.

Oh, Josh, I didn't read it that way....Yes Al, if there is other income that is reliable, measurable and can reasonably be expected to be received from a property that income will be considered as well.

However, the lease agreement is month to month, and I don't know how reliable the income stream is.What would you do?

If it's not highly reliable, the tenants will call you first, and it gets really old when they call 5 times a day.

So I like J's suggestions, I just think I'd prefer to start with #2.Find a reliable & reasonable contractor through referrals from other investors or at your REI club, take them (for a $50-70 fee) to your most likely candidate properties.

Any future stream of income over time can be evaluated, the further out you go the less reliable it becomes, so your guess of what the market will bear is probably better than mine.

I've started looking at what's available in my price range over the past few weeks ($400k-$550k), and currently my main road block is finding reliable brokers/agents.

It's no surprise I've heard more than once that fast and reliable money, and lots of it, is more valuable than cheap money.