The Fair Housing Act of 1985 basically says that you can't discriminate based on "familial status" (among other things).Legally, you can turn down someone who is dealing with legal issues, though I would recommend being consistent on the issue, as you wouldn't want to face Fair Housing complaints if you weren't consistent in enforcing your criteria.

The rental rates and nights rented have not recovered although they have been consistent the last two years.

Consistent upward trend.( Ft Myers, FL.)Rich

I'll be calling the utility company to get the past bills, and assuming these costs are consistent with past winters (taking into account the extremely cold weather), I'll let her know that I can't do anything about the situation.We've pushed back on many of her unreasonable requests, so I don't think she's trying to "push me"...I just think she's used to living in an apartment, and there are some aspects of SFHs that she's not accustomed to.Anyway, I've given her the option of getting out of her lease early if she really can't afford the utility bills, which wouldn't bother me either way...

Being consistent in your methods is more important than almost any other aspect of accounting, if you don't stay with the same system you'll have a mess.

I think theories are only good if they are consistent with the data.

Tips:- Build your credit starting NOW- Start saving money NOW- Start reading everything you can get your hands on about real estate NOW- Start networking with other investors -- try finding a real estate investing group/association in your area- Once you have some base knowledge, start putting together a plan of action to achieve your goal -- it will likely consist of various intermediate steps you need to take to get to your goal- Start looking at and evaluating deals so you know what a good deal looks like (and doesn't look like)- Ask lots of questions along the wayIt may take a few years to get where you're trying to get, but if it's really what you want, you won't give up until you achieve it...

We had many showings, zero offers, and consistent feedback of "too much money for the area", "nice but too much money", etc.

This is very common in my market.If your getting beat consistently, you may need to tighten up your numbers a bit, or look at a different property value range.

Because the end game for rentals provides consistent cash flow with virtually zero effort.