I am by far the easiest going landlord I know, but after a few years I've learned if you give an inch they take a mile.

I think I will introduce the annual meet or stop by and drop off something like a $50 dollar gift card during the holidays to show my gratitude towards them.

What do you all think is the easiest and safest way to approach this?  

There are a lot of different options out there when it comes to financing.Bank financing is probably the easiest to qualify for personally, but harder to get a property to qualify for. 

What is usually the easiest way to find the true property tax on a property?

But I'm most interested in real estate in New Orleans because it's my most consistent home base and seems  to be easiest managing being that I have a lot of family there to do any needed ground work I may need.

If this is your primary residence (homesteaded property) I suggest waiting until after the 2 year mark to get tax free capital gain (tax free is the sweetest gift of them all).

That's the linchpin to the easiest solution.

The "easiest" way is to be able to fund your own first deal or two, but outside of that you will need to network like a bad Johnny!

You can read all you want, it's actually the easiest part, but somehow you have to turn it into action even if it's one thing at a time, and that's the hard part that'll turn you into an investor instead of a wanna be.