If you haven't yet, be sure to check out the The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing and The BiggerPockets Podcast.

However, no matter how well deals are vetted investors should know that their decision is ultimately up to them.  

Keep up the good work, you will find the answers to your question as you go and explore the world of real estate. type in the search box, listing to the podcast  specially the lastest one, and read Brandon's new book (which i just down loaded The Ultimate Package) for extra learning.

You will ultimately need somebody on the ground to let prospective tenants in the door and to verify that the painter in fact painted the place.

How long can you survive without income to build your RE business?

We would like to use the rehab projects and rental property to fill in the gaps and ultimately may decide to so primarily that depending on how successful we are at it.

For investors, the ablity to accuratly read market data and sales comps or to understand the ends and outs of several different loan programs (and how they can work for the different investment situations) are absolutely necessary for surviving in this business.

Ultimately, of course, the whole thing is a series of different trade-offs.

Our ultimate goal is to broaden our business portfolio to include our current advertising business, a property management company, sales and mortgage company and construction company to capitalize on all aspects of the business.As I said, we just purchased our first property and are looking forward to getting it back on the market ASAP to realize real estate profits that I know are out there.

When we have another recession I wonder if they will survive.