You want your cake and you want to eat it too.  

This way if you can have your cake and eat it, too.  

If you are renting from a property manager and can't find a tenant to pay a higher rent then you (your profit is the difference in the deal), guess who eats the payment and builds 0 equity generates 0 cash flow.....you.I would figure out your personal finances.....how much you save vs. spend and build a solid down payment to buy your own rental.

Maintenance, CapEx, management, etc will more than eat up the $400 you are left with after PITI.

Plenty of people here mention other people's money but every time I look it up it seems as though I only find hard money and private lenders which have interest rates that would eat up my rental profits. 

So Im am going to eat up all this info , learn as much as i can and hit up the forums for questions and answers!

I'll eat the $3 for that sort of convenience and service.

Things can go sideways and require cash and holding costs on an overrun schedule can eat up 1000 quickly.If you did, what is the build cost per square foot in your area, does it make sense to build a 350k house that will cost you 330k and 10k to split the lot and rearrange financing?

Fixed costs such as closing costs can quickly eat up your profit.

Listening to a lot of BP Podcasts, they tend to advise to stay away from investment properties with HOAs, since as you outlined, they eat up your profits.