EDUCATE YOURSELF - yes, it will take time, but will lead to a selection that better meets your expectations & avoids potentially costly surprises!

If you would like to avoid taxes, another option is to take out a mortgage or home equity line of credit against the property and use that money as a down payment to buy another property and now have 2 rental properties generating monthly income .Hope this helps Judah 

If your in a good shape financially and can apply a down payment to avoid PMI, I would.  

To my understanding, the case is that 20% down regardless of property type allows the borrower to avoid private mortgage insurance.

I assume I can avoid to be considered a "security" if I am borrowing for own use.- Given the very low rate I am simply considering paying off existing higher-rate mortgages on my rental properties, essentially "refinancing" at a lower rate. 

I avoid foundation issues, mold, termites etc. until I get a little more experience  under my belt.

This way your assistants can instantly see what routes have been driven to avoid virtually driving down those streets.

My understanding is that if I do this, for each of my two rental properties, then I can avoid capital up to $250K (I'm single).

This will also avoid the sticker shock you'll likely experience with a GC 

I've used Stessa for a couple of years but I'm transitioning everything to QBO now due to my personal bank feeds constantly breaking in Stessa and causing a ton of unnecessary manual data entry.