I feel very fortunate. 

Fortunately historically the appreciation of San Diego has had a far better ROI versus better cash flow locales (verifiable fact).By the way rents on small rental units in San Diego have been going up ~$100/month per year for the last few years.

Timothy Metra I was lucky enough to not have major fixes or problems with the duplex so I wasn't getting calls from my tenants but if I would have I fortunately had myself and a few other people that could take care of issues.

Richard Hannig you are very fortunate to have interest at such a young age.

The 3 main things I learned from that experience were: a) I was overthinking (every thing) when it came to getting started; b) I was looking in the wrong places for deal(s); c) If I was going to be successful, I needed to have a team, and fortunately, he was able to introduce me to his HML (hard money lender) his title company and his network, until I was able to replace them with my own team.  

Account Closed, you speculated w/ your purchase 10 years ago and fortunately it has paid off.

Fortunately I found an all star tenant with nothing on his record so I did not get to see how they report details of any past records.Rentprep is easy and straightforward.

Also, I was fortunate enough to work for several years at a company where I racked up a lot of reimbursable business expenses. 

Fortunately, I am a Realtor albeit a new one but the resources are still there I just need to learn to leverage it.I am considering a HELOC in conjunction with Hard Money.

Its in a rural area that would be difficult to maintain tenants, I've been fortunate to only have had 2 tenants in the past 6 years.