If your tenant does not pay, you must cover the entire mortgage on your own now - If your evecting, this may continue for several months - with a duplex, at least you would have another rent check to fall back on.Also, when you consider taxes and insurance - it would cost more in taxes if you purchased two homes and paid for two insurance polices Vs paying taxes on one property and only one policy.

I'll be "retiring" from the military in the fall of 2015.

This past fall a couple large cracks, 1/8" and some typical hairline cracks, have appeared throughout the home.

I was thinking about maybe giving a couple cheap packages of lights to my SFR renters, but don't want someone falling off a ladder and saying I encouraged it!

New buyers get hit hard enough already that I've watched several house deals in my neighborhood fall through as soon as the insurance quotes came through.Has me very concerned.

Like @David Krulac I fall in-between the polar points expressed here.Though we hold mostly multi-family properties, we do have a few SFRs which are student rentals at this time.In the case of a property that may be sold to a retail buyer, I agree that you would wait until you were preparing for disposition to affect the final cosmetic renewal and possible quality upgrades (i.e. moving to soap stone counters in the kitchen).That said, we look to affect efficiency retrofits early in our ownership of a property - usually at the first opportunity provided by turnover.

PM is definitely in the future because next fall I will be going back to school full time and I am in not in the mood to take a 2am call because the toilet is jacked up.

I'd say you should wear a retracting harness with a tether so you don't fall, but hey, any contractor I know would shoot you if you followed them on top of a roof so I think you're safe from falling, (not safe from bullets, so don't try going up there after them!)

The SAFE act has made residential loans, even on a second home, very restricted and a rental single family house in your own name falls under the same category as an OO residence.

With the concern of a slip and fall suit I wonder what the courts consider negligent.