Every now an then, you get folks who maliciously damage stuff when being evicted (note:  this can be mitigated through good tenant screening*)  When you just own the lot/land, there is less "Stuff" to break.  

It's a trade off between risk mitigation vs. cost (monetary and complexity).

Hey Lawrence- good for you for exploring options to mitigate your expenses and start investing!

Seeing the returns under stressed scenarios helps me pull the trigger (or not).Value add is a must in this market to mitigate risk (and it's been a must for me for 15 years anyway).

Others might be fine with taking risk, but least by doing this a person can get an idea of what might go wrong.e) Legal document analysis: it will usually take a few days to go through the legal document properly, as almost inevitably there are tons of gotchas that either have to be explained, or mitigated with a side letter.That is the very short summary of what I do.

If an insurer has an opportunity to mitigate, or deny, a loss if there are contractual issues, be sure they'll try!

I don’t mind risk as long as I understand the risks and have proven ways to mitigate those risks.Seeing as I don’t have the knowledge to understand the risks of the 43608 zip code, I think I will take your advice and look for an inherently less risky zip code.

Again, you mitigate this risk by not being over-leveraged and keeping reasonable cash reserves.Here's how I like to think about it -- if you never leverage yourself more than 75% (always have at least 25% down-payment), you'll always start in a situation where the market can drop 25% without you being "underwater."

To try and mitigate some of those challenges have either of you found it successful to reach out to agents in the area beforehand that are willing to give you a better first hand perspective on the area?

What kinds of steps are you taking to mitigate ?