Plus, you're incurring additional expenses that eat into whatever equity you do build up in your 2-3 years.Fair warning, the rest of this may seem like a bit of a downer but having just spent 5 years stationed in San Diego and, after a lot of research, deciding to rent while there and invest in other markets, I think it's worth presenting for you to consider. 

One site had his business address listed with a “avoid scam” warning.

It has all the warning signs of "SCAM"Plenty of other tenants out in the market place who are legit and will take the place.

List to sale ratio also helps give an early warning whether prices are dropping or still popping.

I should warn you... you might not be able to get 100% of their money back from a loan and you might not be able to get it immediately.

He isn't maintaining your property, got warned tondo something about it, ignored it, and this is what happens.

Fair warning here - typically, you will get young professionals as roommates in this situation, but the numbers typically do work better than the multifamily properties. 

@BiggerPockets .com needs to start a repository by state where investors can post their failed contractor’s as a warning to other investors. 

If it worked out, I could rinse/repeat.For the crowd that wants to warn me about the difficulty of being my own general contractor/doing some of the home improvement projects, duly noted.

I appreciate the information @Jay Hinrichs and the warnings.