Does that give me enough room to make a profit assuming I do a lot of the minor work - new showers, paint, siding repair, fixtures, landscaping myself and hire out for AC/roof/carpet from discount outlets?

Search and landscape mode.

We just replaced all flooring and did landscaping.

Bingo.I've done M&A, have been an angel investor and have been involved with venture capital, and while the support for the numbers is important in a business plan, if you were to throw out 90% of the plan other than the projected P&L and cash flow statements, it would probably be enough.The numbers are key...but as Dion pointed out, the numbers are meaningless if you don't understand your business model and the landscape of the market.Anyone who has ever been involved in a venture capital pitch knows which pages are the business plan are really important

Drop some nice landscaping in there and you might be able to get a few extra bucks in income and resale though.

I like zillow for looking at prices. i like craigslist to see what people in the area are looking for. i like using the county website for seeing who owns each property, what they paid, etc. to determine what job trends are I'll read the news to see if companies are coming or going. but that's for the places I already picked to focus on. for general overviews on how to pick an investing location, i'm not sure. maybe forbes or realtor.com have statistics pages that say "this area is expected to increase by x%"

I don't know about other landlords, but the only expenses I cover, outside of the standard Principal, Interest, Taxes, Insurance (PITI) are landscaping, HOA, and home warranty.

Perhaps more importantly, when I get to interact with a client in person, that client is statistically far more likely to include me when they're planning changes in their business.

Things I've done is rented (2) 10 Cubic Yard Dumpsters, replaced the front porch, gutted the entire upstairs, put drywall throughout 75% of the property, rewired the electrical systems, re-coated the metal roof, landscaping and etc.So EVERYTHING I purchased for the property such as materials, small tools such as pry-bars, drywall knife and etc must be capitalized or just the MATERIALS used for the improvements?

I understand why the PM was defensive, anyone would be when your professional license could potentially be at stake, and my apologies for implying that the PM overreacted.Also, thank you for your response I did not think anyone would so it's very comforting that you took the time to write.There must exist some type of service where though the PM performs most of the managerial duty, there is a "supplemental" manager who is also entitled to fees.When you have a rental home where the rent includes fees for landscaping, obviously a piece of rent goes to landscapers, yet landscapers are not licensed real estate agents, so how does that work legally?