Thanks so much for this food for thought.

food for thought.

Many tenants will clean up after their pets, but in my experience, often times they will leave a good amount of previously digested pet food on the ground - hopefully outside.You are right - it is a risk, and like i said, if you don't take that risk, you really limit your potential renter pool.Often times these repairs are minor like scratches on the door or chewed baseboards, but without the animal those scratches and the expenses wouldn't be there.  

Food for thought.

Real estate is going to be a highly relationship driven business and will move slower than other industries like manufacturing or food service.

In reality I'm no more likely to go down to Fresno as I would be to hop on a plane and go OOS.This is just food for thought, not really saying one market is better than another.

And 6-8 months really is really short.To answer how to build up savings faster, once you have banked all of the savings you can possibly reap by lowering your expenses (especially in housing, transportation, food, healthcare, taxes) here are a few ideas:Sell stuff you don't need on Craigslist Find a gig (Uber, Lyft, Task Rabbit, Rover, etc)Get a second job (not fun... but think about it... check out Virtual Vocations, Flexjobs, Werk)Freelance (got a skill you can market on the side?

@Rj De Leon Awesome “food for thought” you bring up and greatly appreciate the advice as I begin my real estate journey in the Chicagoland area!

I also want to give you more food for thought:1) Keep in mind, some deal sponsors are able to utilize an even greater depreciation expense, by  performing a Cost Segregation studies.

Hi Mark,Insurance is a very small component of what you should be looking at with these strip malls.Now I want to make sure when you say strip mall you are talking about small retail strip centers and not an actual mall where people walk inside with shops on each side and a food court.Those are two very different animals.The insurance the expense might vary from what the seller has shown.