Bonifacio Capuyan When contracting from out of state always hire a 3rd party individual - either an agent , property manager or another contractor to inspect the property and take a lot of pictures.

HA also has a bunch of free new analytical tools to help you see demand and adjust pricing.

I know what the qualifications are to be a real estate professional, but I've read that an election may need to made so that I can treat all my rental activities as one activity so that my hours claimed are considered for all my properties versus needing to prove I spent enough hours for each individual property.  

This creates a taxable event for the individual leaving which they are planning on anyway. 

Successful individuals in the business of real estate (Donald Bren, Rick Caruso, Donald Trump) have fared better than investors.

Texas has a lot of opportunity but be careful when you buy, I hear that you can get in trouble as an investor in the event you buy too high because Texas' appreciate rate is one of the lowest in the country due to the fact that there is so much land there's excess supply and little demand even in today's market!  

Sad, of course, for those of us trying to create Class A assets, but you can't argue with supply and demand--it's simply reality.

We all ready own similar properties and we have systems to manage the demands which comes with this tenant pool. 

There is a lot of demand for these from people in the service industry.

You and your other investors can avoid the 1065 filing requirement and just split income and expenses on your schedule E(s) for your individual return(s).You may have very good reasons for forming a partnership.