So we teamed up, (My whole family is in the construction industry) I am doing the physical labor and they are the bank.

I used to work in corporate/retail real estate and would order geotech reports for every new store being built.

If you give free rent for some time period, the place is physically occupied, but not producing any rent.

Of course reviews are important but they won't make you a bestseller.If you have built a following here's how you achieve high sales velocity when selling a book: Offer a 'buy the kindle version and get a physical copy for free' promotion.

There's no substitute for physically driving/walking a neighborhood and personally seeing it's housing inventory when it comes to really learning a place. 

I'll see how to incorporate this new term in my lease.. 

Do you have a property checklist that you use when going over the physical aspects? 

that was awesome Bill, thank you:)i'm going to edit it and actually create two letters and incorporate your ideas as well

@Lynn MontangHi Lynn - You don't need a website to get started but it's a good idea to think about how you want to incorporate/structure your business so you can minimize your personal liability/risk from the rental. 

My background is in sales, marketing and business development and hers in corporate human resources.We will likely be joining both Pittsburgh-based RE groups (ACRE and REIA) to begin networking.