Shadow a couple deals of other investors and/or find a mentor at your local REIA or Real Estate Meetup.You could also take a deal to a hard money lender, whether or not they choose to lend to you should be an indication of a good or bad deal.

Its also not a bad idea to calculate long term ownership cost. i.e. if the roof is 10yrs old, in 5-10yrs you are going to have to spend 10k+ on a new one.

And, some of them offer no cost trades upon transfer and cash incentives for transferring accounts.No more fees, no more crappy online experience, no more waiting weeks to access funds from transactions, no more having to request statements or documents, no more M-F 8-5 only hours, no more bad advice.

The parts he bought in aren’t bad and he uses property management for all of them.

You cannot buy a property and leave it vacant most of the year without it being a drain on your income and exposing yourself to some serious dangers.You cannot just leave the property vacant and not expect bad things to happen. 

More headache than is worth it for someone young and starting out with little liquid cash to float if something goes bad.3.

However, I quickly learned it was a bad idea.

I will keep running numbers during our inspection period and look for any red flags...Do you really think it's a bad idea to buy out of state rental property without seeing it?

A very bad house was pending at 675K after three days, and another 1600 s.f House was pending after one day at 719K.

I am an "Old Gal" and sometimes we just blurt out the first thing that comes into our heads when we get older. 0Actually, I am a bad salesperson.