Did you set up a bank account that the tenant has access to?

Maintenance is a huge expense to keep in mind, Vacancy in case one of your tenants moves out and stops paying, and of course Capital Expenditures to plan for bigger projects in the future such as roofs and siding.

Eviction.Once a tenant stops responding, that's your only and best option.

I have access to theMLS so I do not need to be forwarded listings from there, but we are looking for a 15,000 square foot lot (minimum) zoned commercial in Los Angeles for a client to expand his business on.

I'm sure it can get lost in the mail, but in 3 years I've never had this problem, and they can stop payment if it does get lost in the mail and send a new check. 

If they get out, you can always stop the eviction process.

At first the sellers agent was surprised and then she stopped responding to my agent.

The guys selling the courses telling you that you can do this, they stopped doing this themselves and got into the business of selling courses to tell you, you can do it. 

Real estate agents have access to MLS.

We'd go days and sometimes weeks with intermittent internet access to be able to contact folks back stateside.