I tend to start with one of the front of the property, two of the kitchen, one to two of the living area, the bathroom, etc.

Sellers tend to give incomplete/inaccurate information.

This tends to be more art than science.Finally you narrow in on the property.

They tend to charge a much higher interest rate, or at least a decent equity split, since the actual borrower doesn't have much skin in the game.

At what CAP rate do properties in that area tend to sell for?

I tend to do the vast majority of the work.  

If nothing else, your accounting gets complicated because you have money going out of one pocket and into another.If its still being rented when you kids are there, you can hire them to manage it.I tend to side with all_cash on using the HELOC for investing.

I've dealt with students before, and that's not too bad if you can persuade them to hand over the rent when they get their student loan cheque, but I've not dealt with housing benefit.I know there's a cap on how much housing benefit will be paid depending on the size of the property / size of the family living there, but the cap is actually decently high compared to the average cost of rent in this area.So I was wondering why landlords in general don't like to deal with housing benefit tenants - surely they're better than normal tenants, since the government tend to be more reliable payers?

Please be advised though that TX has very high prop. taxes, 2.75% and insurance tends to cost more (than California)So 3 homes, about $160k/ ea, w/ 20% down.

I tend to think this was timed before the Olympics and executed right after with Russia having it's days in the sun of higher public opinion.The next move while chasing out the old leaders was to rally the Russian sympathizers to unite, which they have, that was a known outcome, that the people in Crimea would support Putin.Then, the Ukrainian new government makes a ploy as to request troops come in, Crimea requests assistance and begins actions to secede from Ukraine.