I would suggest that you interview several Realtors and ask them the following questions, to ascertain if they are truly Investor Friendly, or if they are throwing you a sales pitch.1.

Any good suggestions for specific maintenance tasks and intervals to best minimize the damage to appliances?

I sat through about a day and a half of extraordinarily low yield motivational speaking and sales pitches after paying 100 dollars.

Maybe you "horse trade" instituting full expense reimbursement in exchange for leaving the base rents about where the are, or with only a minimal CPI increase with a minimum floor, or such.  

My goal is to rent the other two bedrooms to pay the expenses completely or minimize the amount of rent I would be paying.

You can both maximize rents and minimize cap ex.

Many of these give sales pitches, gurus try to sell their products or mentoring programs, or someone tries to get you to invest in a REI Fund by a group of people pooling their money, for some REI and promising an unrealistic return.

Stay away from the “guru” sales-pitch events - they rarely increase your investment knowledge, they merely empty your wallet!

We're looking to minimize closing costs by making cash offers or getting creative with financing on non-MLS listed properties.

Here's some more for you:-The Pitch-Unfair Advantage -Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, and it's All Small Stuff-Retire Young, Retire Rich-How to Win Friends and Influence People-Why We Want You to be Rich -Outwitting the DevilEnjoy!