Our published prices are for 12 months but we'll do 6 monht for +$75, 3 month for +$125 and month to month for +$250The reason for the increase is there is a lot of cost that goes into a new lease. 

It can be a hassle at times, but the increase in your ROI from self-managing is hard to beat.

Over improvement not only costs you money up front, it increases your long term maintenance and repair costs.

Look to ensure that its value would increase by lots more than the cost of fixing it!

I had them do this retroactively on a tenant increasing her portion $150 / month.  

An umbrella policy does not cover anything special, it only increases the amount that will be paid out in the event of a liability claim. 

Whoever you talked to at the HOA might have had an agenda or may have given you bad info so I would double check.Offering seller financing may help by increasing your pool of buyers.

This scenario is the mostly even benefit scenario as the tenant leveraged their increased rent to make the purchase. 

As of late, I have became interested in real estate and purchasing the home for the need of a tax shelter and increase my networth.My parent's house at the moment is valued at $500,000.

You'll have very quickly increased your net by 45K against 10K start...it's just not very liquid is it.I'll stop there because I just looked at page 2, now your property value estimates are VERY NICE.