Utilities were included and also household supplies (paper products, laundry products, cleaning supplies).

This not only is required, but makes it much easier for someone to determine whether they might want to deal with that particular advertiser.

@Steve Vaughan  I think the reason they do is for some reason they believe what they hear that the way to buy rental real estate when you have no money.. is to wholesale first get some money then buy rentals.when in fact wholesaling or buying and selling deals quickly in any volume takes a lot of skill.. significant marketing capital.. and most of the time they are breaking the real estate laws.And you have all sorts of HOW TO trainers selling their boot camps and of course they lead with you too can get rich with NON of your own money..theoreticaly that's true.. but not really reality in the real world..not to mention some areas simply do not have enough distressed real estate to make it viable at all.other areas like urban cores and cities that have seen hard times much easier to at least snag low value assets no one wants.. much of this is done is rough areas.Granted there are always hoarder houses and other fixer types in the nicer areas but its uber competitive for them.. and generally there is not enough profit in them to feed all the mouths.the wholesaler the buyer the buyer having to use hard money the contractor sales cost etc.. that in my mind is why you see so many post about HEY wholesalers don't know what they are doing..

I had to hire an local attorney do a eviction on the former tenants plus I paid 1k to clean out the house and cut the yard.

Hope this makes sense.It allows the investor to qualify easier for future loans

He took a chance and he made out.Also there are credit repair companies out there that will help you dispute EVERYTHING on your credit report, making it look clean for a certain window of time, but then all that bad history comes back after the debts are affirmed.

It's much easier than after the fact.

My bad experience has been the renter hardly ever cleaned the house and after the end of the year, renter moved into the next clean house and left me the mess.

If you have full time job, it might be easier for you to get a property.You can start by investing in Baltimore, it could  be less risky and you might end up learning more that what you will learn in any of the meet ups.

It's actually easier than you think.