As a community, I think that we can do a better job educating newbies to keep them out of hot water, help them make money, and in return get good deals out of it. 

For someone barley getting there feet in the water, what would be the best books and educational material to get?

What about water/sewer?

Can you backcharge for water?

Per the lease it was the tenants' responsibility to cover lawn maintenance and water was to be paid by the landlord and reimbursed by tenants.Although it was the tenants' responsibility to maintain the lawn, we worked out a handshake agreement that the landlord would continue paying his lawn guy and we would reimburse him for it.

Since we launched the last year has been solid  - Since we have lived on the property it only would cost us around 50 extra a month for water and utilities from what we were already paying.

For instance, have you accounted for maintenance, CapEx reserves, taxes, insurance, water, trash, electric, gas and landscaping?

Assuming that you are interested in buy and hold, you will also need to include repairs, capital expenditures (CAPEX), vacancy, water/sewer (unless tenant is responsible), and property management.

In other words, while it's popular as hell just to use % of the topline to represent costs, most costs are actually fixed dollar amounts.Fir instance, replacing a water heater in a $900 rental costs the same thing as it does in a $500 rental.

If you're lucky enough to have a local builder with experience building passive houses, you may be able to build a house which requires almost zero supplementary heating and cooling, and it will have lower water bills as well.