The real stress comes from dealing with staff, deadlines, incompetence from other departments, and the constant unexpected changes.

It's easy to make bad decisions when activity slows down.What's surprising to me right now though is how fast LISTING prices on typical homes appear to be rising.

The outlets are always changed out at that point too because they're cheap plus I want to make sure there are no hidden surprises back there (improper wiring, lose wires, weird junctions, etc).

Any surprises yet?

I've said this before on BP, the time to sell is when someone offers you more than what you would pay for your asset.My best guess is that we will return to "normalcy" in 2015, barring any major surprise by government(s).

I'd be surprised if they weren't willing to help.

Better to do that as early on in the process as possible, so that there are no surprises encountered along the way (like somebody reluctant to sign).

They get them out and show while I'm talking to them, "have fun tonight, enjoy" then I say, oh, I need an emergency phone number to call you incase anything happens....I have a pen and my pocket notebook, you'd be surprised how many give me thier number!

We are about to close on property number 4 and are cultivating three other potential acquisitions.I few things I have learned during our short life as real estate investors and landlords:1) Running a real estate / {residential} rental business is a lot like running any business ... and it is also very different than other businesses.2) Purchasing rental real estate - at least the small 1-4 residential properties we've acquired thus far - is surprisingly far more difficult (for empirical geeks) than acquiring another business.

Also, I was surprised that the letters actually work!