I finished my design work for David and collected my fees.

What about rent collection - is it reasonable to ask tenants to pay by mail, or what other option would you give?

I have a single family home I rent that has about 28K remaining on the loan.I collect about 500 a month, after prop. management fees.I'm thinking about cashing out a mutual fund and paying off the house.Then, my 28K would be making approx. 500 a month, or about 6K a year, as opposed to the 0 dollars it is making invested in the market.Also, Dave Ramsey writes that the only way he owns rentals is if he owns them outright with no loansDoes any of this make sense or am I missing some very important facts??

As Ryan alluded to, find a real estate agent to work with; he or she should be able to provide you with the comp data you need to determine a realistic price-point for the location, property and condition.If you need something more formal than doing it yourself but less formal than an appraisal, many agents can perform a "Broker Price Opinion" (or BPO) which will give you an idea of the market value of the property (many agents will charge for this, though).

If you want to collect commission, then get a license (in my opinion).

I think the biggest problem would be coming up with the 20% needed to make these numbers work.Purchase Price:$2,350,000Property type: 72 unit ApartmentYear Built: 1970Rentable Area: 58,211 sq ftLot Size:: 124,823 sq ftCurrent Occupancy: 89.19%Purchase Price: $2,350,000Assignment Fee1: $100,000Cap Rate2: 10.77%Net Operating Income3: $253,078.29Pre-tax Cash-flow4: $102,986.01Earnest Money Deposit5: $21,500Down Payment: $470,000Loan Amount: $1,880,000Amortization Period: 30 yearsInterest Rate: 7%Mortgage: $12,507.69Loan To Value Ratio: 80%Debt Coverage Ratio: 1.5044Unit Mix: 24 1/1.5, 47 2/2, and 1 3/2Scenario A:You'll purchase the property at a 10.77% cap rate (based upon his actual numbers), DCR of 1.6862 (assuming you get financing at 80% LTV with 7% APR); and you should receive an annual pre-tax cash-flow of at least $102,986.Scenario B:You could increase your cap rate to 12.1%, your DCR to 1.8949, and the yield of your annual pre-tax cash-flow by nearly $32K simply by reducing your vacancies and collections (from nearly 11%) to 5% of the gross rents (which is the norm for that area—so it's doable).

you could try searching on craigslist for rentals in your area, then contact the rentors and just tell them your situation and ask if they have a lot of difficulty collecting full rent from tenants.just bear in mind that some might be pretty close-minded, and give you a line of crap talking about how horrible it is, just to scare you away from moving into their area and thus increasing the competition.

You can print the data sheet and take it to a lender.

I’d highly recommend Cozy for background checks and rent collection, and the BP book ‘Managing Rental Properties’.

Any idea where data like this would exist?