In my area, I have noticed that people who own free and clear properties as rentals tend to neglect their homes.

Understanding the numbers is absolutely critical, so go ahead and take Josh's advice and check out those links and others on BP.

Another nice benefit is being able to order ahead of time (online, fax or phone) and schedule a delivery.

It's a great concept & returns using the LTO concept are phenomenal.......we just had a couple walk away from 4 years of LTO payments (& $20,000 of renovations @ their expense) on a SFH.The week they gave us notice we already had a new couple sign up & move in without any downtime.

I feel like I could get a head start taking the no-school option and since most people quit their jobs to do real estate investing full time eventually what's the point?

I noticed on Amazon that he doesn't have a lot of reviews.

Not sure about Aina Nalu though.Anyway, a rough estimate with self managed (which I have seen many mainlanders do) its going to be the $21,450 gross, minus 877.96 for tax, $6,110 maintenance fees/HOA, $12, 454 in mortgage, $400 online vacation rental booking fee, and you end up in the black with positive $1,608.04.Also, a scary number I noticed on Zillow the other day was that home prices will rise a projected 22% on Maui next year.I bit concerning to see that kind of spike.I work in Hotel and Restaurant Management business and so does my father who happens to be in the same room at the moment (he works in a separate resort).In 2009 both resorts were in the 50% occupancy range.

As far as rent increase goes, you will have to give them a 30 day notice to increase the rent.

Approaching anyone who has received a notice of foreclosure is now covered by law as a foreclosure counselor or agent, you can't just approach these people as a business without compliance issues.The reason the authorities cracked down is because people were being scammed and "assisted" by people with limited knowledge some probably based on guru stuff and they caused more problems then they ever solved.

Something I've noticed is many properties are listed with the '12 (pre-AVI) assessment so you have to be careful before you get too excited about the numbers and ensure you're looking at the post-AVI tax burden.