>Can avoid vacancies via: a) effective tenant screening, b) having reserves to dip into and c) selecting markets with low rates of vacancy - such as stable cities.

I went to Zillow for Columbus and selected multi-family limited to $200K.

All excellent advice.

Most of the time with a good reason because they initially selected a bad property manager.· Never keeping enough reserves.· Always trying to get the cheapest contractor they can find who 95% of the time ends up doing a terrible job.· Not willing to take advice from his/hers property manager.· Never appreciative of the efforts of the Property Management Company.· Pointing fingers instead of taking responsibilities.· Negative, expecting bad things to happen to their investment properties and they usually do due to the poor management they have selected.· You will often see them jumping from one property management company to another while complaining about the entire industry.

(Buyer pays at bid selection)Buyer's Agent Commission: Greater of 3% of sale price or $1,250.

What you have added is excellent.  

Plus the webinars are excellent free material. 

An additional thought is to sell the duplex, but I am reluctant as it is in an excellent town in an excellent neighborhood.Much thanks to anyone willing to give feedback, ask me questions etc.

The more I deal with real life tenants the less I believe this and the harder I work at tenant selection.

Hello everyone I have worked very hard to finally post in a forum like this that i am ready to make my first investment in a rental property. i have excellent credit score and am based out of DFW area in Texas.