It's important that you understand how your expenses and taxes effect your bottom line, so keep on doing what you are doing, but have a CPA verify that you are on the right track.

Of course many lawyers would tell you otherwise.Of course, one possible advantage (if this is important to you) is that an LLC provides a layer of obfuscation if for some reason you are looking to make it harder for someone to find out you are a landlord through public records. 

Just meeting the person face-to-face is important.

I think the realtor is the least important part of your team you need to build, sorry to all the realtors out there lol.

But the engineer is the important part.

I had them sign paperwork surrendering the keys, their tenancy, and stating all property left behind is of no value to them and can be discarded at their expense.We had a spoken agreement that the jet ski was important to him and he will come collect it.

Your LTV is ~60%, but more importantly, it is your primary residence.

While you might not care about exactly what kinds of soil you have on the site, the most important thing is the water table, especially if you're planning to build a basement.

And most importantly, what type of document is needed to make the loan "official"?

But the homes down south of Chandler - totally different story - I would have lost my shirt.So bottom line, I found that if you buy in a ROBUST area that has demographic tailwinds (jobs, pop growth, income growth) and more importantly, at the right LOCATION, you will not lose money, as long as you are able to HOLD thru a downturn.