Go to the courthouse and plan on spending some time there, half day to start.

With your 2 properties one vacancy cuts your income in half--a big hit. 

Half the battle is educating yourself before taking the plunge.

The house needs everything: Roof, gutters, siding (asbestos shingles nailed over older cedar shingles), drainage abatement, rehabbed bath, total kitchen, replaced flooring (half), refinished flooring (other half), back steps, total landscape, HVAC (old furnace is missing), insulation (2" in attic; none elsewhere) additional electrical circuits, plumbing includes iron pipes, interior trim and paint.

You can end up paying half your profit in tax if you are successful enough to be in a high tax bracket.

(Although not working for the month of June ;)It's been going smoothly enough that I was able to take a month and a half off late last year to travel Europe, without any problems - and used the money I didn't pay a property manager that year, to do it..

The time period for this is one and half years to two years.

Assume for a moment you have a local team able to handle 100+ homes a year and have a few hundred homes under your belt.I have 20 days to find a cost effective solution......I'm thinking I should partner as these assets are spread amongst 26 states with about half in the SE of the country (where I have ample experience and resources).

There is a SS around the corner (literally) from me that is selling for about half its rehabbed value.

Lucky for me I am selling that house and they are moving in 30 days, the extra people are gone though because we told them we would give back half of all their late fees if they cooperated with all of our requests during the sale.