I guess we'll just have to see what SBY, ARPI and AMH do after a few more quarters of earnings go by without them getting into the black.As for your comparison to subprime, I have to make one distinction.

., and what the government plans for a specific piece of property can be VERY lucrative.

Another piece of advice, don't use Zillow as your end-all be-all valuation tool.

Each meeting, even the bad REIA meetings most likely has someone or some piece of information that can help you.  

I'd really appreciate any piece of advice as this would be my first time buying a property. 

Every piece of property should be in it's own Land Trust and you should have an LLC for each type of asset class you are investing (this goes to money management, which is a subject beyond this post). 

If you want to scale, managers will be a necessary piece unless you want to grow a property management business too.

as long as you have equitable interest in a piece of real estate via purchase and sales agreement or an option to buy....

Just put down a moisture barrier and then some sheathing (I normally rip pieces of plywood into 2' x 8' strips and run them perpendicular to my flooring) so you can nail the floor into the sheathing.

We had a snow/wind storm today and piece of wood was ripped off the roof of my building and has hit my car.