from spending my last 10 weeks in miami looking at 500 land deals and making offers and doing underwriting on deals with construction values higher, the playing field above 10 million is so much easier and better and of more interest and separates all the newbies from sophisticated. at my level there is no reason to do small deals. the only multifamily I do under commercial at this point is a triplex we build over and over for out of state investors in Columbus Ohio which is just a unique little niche. tampa I'm not too familiar with zoning or rezoning but columbus is such an old city it has so many mutilfamily properties and rezoning is very easy to get the entitlements for ground up new construction.

How can I confirm that the tenant is paying on time and properly maintaining the property?

My main question is…i know i pay a deposit and we have an agreed upon term.

And if the right property is purchased you can recoup the money to pay back loan and any other start up costs to repeat the process.

But with the array of services and fee structures current property management companies offer, it is entirely possible to pay an extremely low management fee and still be “fee-ed” to death as both an investor—and now even as a resident.Over the past 15 years, the amount of managers and fee structure variance in our industry has been incredible.

Do you pay the heating/cooling or do the tenants pay those utilities?

PM cannot make the tenant pay their rent but there should be a process on their side of what they are doing when the rent is not paid.   

Unless you have boots on the ground working off-market deals or even the tax auction, I advise extreme caution.

Just like you would do with any non-family contractor working for you:- get them to complete Form W9 for you, as you will need their SSNs- have them provide receipts for materials/supplies and keep those receipts- have a written labor agreement (how much and for what) - pay for materials separately from labor- make all payments electronically rather than cash so you can trace them- pay out of your business account, not personal- issue them 1099s next year if you paid them $600 or more for labor (for the whole year, not per job): https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/51/topics/1167632-expla... 

His long term tenant recently moved out and is about to rent it to his adult son, who will be paying him enough to cover the monthly expenses.