I'm a newbie with anxiety about starting out but your story reminded me "ain't nothing to it but to do it!" 

The idea of knocking on doors and cold calling is not what I would like to do.

By knowing what I don't want that takes some of the anxiety away.  

HHas anyone out there made an approach like this before, and was you successful in making a purchase from a 'cold call' stance?

Because I'm an idiot, I thought I would save some money by shutting the heat off in the other unit of my property (I live in Denver and it was bitterly cold this particular week).  

Doing direct sales, cold calling, investing many months pounding the door down for people to sell...not my thing.  

By "good" water in your post, I assume some auto-correct software mangled that from what should be read as "cold" - correct?

However, I also would like to diversify into warm weather US, warm weather Carribean, and cold weather US (I have heard many great things about CO VRs) eventually (I'm talking like having this level of diversification in 10 years).  

That cold be a great way to start.  

I don't see how "Mistakes" in underwriting can be made by anyone who has the the appropriate knowledge of underwriting and has a checklist.You asked for the top beginner mistakes, maybe the question should be what mistakes have you made as a beginner.No one person is going to know what you ask, all they can do is guess at it.You would have to talk to someone who trains underwriters in a one on one method to know that info.And as I said before, I don't see how anyone with a checklist cold make a mistake.Underwriters should not be making mistakes.Underwriting is financial modeling.I think the data you will get from your questions will simply be guesses.It might be easier to pick another topic for our article or whatever you're going to use this for.Such as what did you find hardest when learning underwriting.That way your data source will be able to provide accurate answers.Just my 2 cents