We put in a strong competitive offer with an escalation clause and won the bid because of good closing terms even though we were the second highest bid.

Escalation clause, strong terms (short close, high EMD, BFI).

Strong terms.

So not mandatory but I strongly suggest you get licensed if you planned on staying in this business for a while

Downside is that you have to craft a very strong management agreement between the two tenants.  

I am possibly looking at the Pittsburgh market, as it is in my price range but obviously there are more factors that go into a strong market.

I need to build a strong foundation first and read the books.

Good afternoon - Kansas City is a strong market and you can get very good returns. 

I had a favourite going in to this analysis but after doing this, I actually went with something that was not my favourite because it was frankly better for my business.Personally I settled on Buildium as it has a robust feature set, has a strong and very active roadmap (after acquisition by Real Page) and is Canadian friendly (for the most part).

The rental market currently is very strong in both areas and the prices have appreciated a lot in the last couple of years.