Its hot right now. 

If the deal is fair on both sides, it will be less complicated to buy directly from the seller.

As long as your not over leveraged, you want good debt on your side. 

I've found actual listings to be reasonably accurate data points on both the sale and rent side of things.

@Linda Weygant is partly correct on the CPA tax side of things.

I recently purchased a side by side brick duplex.

I keep hearing bits and pieces about a rental strategy that is best called "Renting to the Disabled by the Room for Above Market Rent" that goes something like this: (1) Buy a house with as many legal bedrooms as you can that still has a decent sized common area, (2) rent it out to the relatively high functioning disabled crowd, (3) via some [unnamed] Government program the State pays above market rents for each of the tenets. (4) Send a house keeper 1-2 times per week to ensure the place stays clean and otherwise make sure there are no issues.The up side is: you get above market rent with a much higher than average tenant count.

You could take your $100k at 4% from the bank and hypothecate it and invest it in a performing note and get 10% - and do not have to deal with tenants, toilets and termites etc.I think this makes a lot of sense, particularly at the top of a hot market.

Anyway, the mortgage is $600, One side rents for $675 and the other for $650. 

The fact they are complaining online might be an indication the property manager dealt with them properly so be sure to ask the manager for their side of the story.I hope this basic guide helps.