However, while I was succumbing to shiny object syndrome (admiring the fancy new kitchen, new hardware, and beautifully tiled bathrooms), my agent was crawling around in the basement crawlspaces, collecting cobwebs and assessing the plumbing.

I know your eager to get your feet wet, but I see routinely how things can go wrong in this business in a hurry.

There are also fancy ways that you'd want to talk to a tax lawyer about for avoiding taxes once you are making the big bucks.

The signage also provides a phone number for neighbors to inform on bad behavior or other issues that might arise, providing you an additional pair of eyes.Develop excellent and consistent systems/procedures for handling the routine stuff.

What is a conservative routine repair estimate, and what is a good vacancy factor?

I used to have to carry around a big clunky box but now they have fancy apps. so your phone can open it.The benefit I liked the most though was the ability to see the days on market for houses in a neighborhood, price adjustments, length of time into the listing agreement the price adjustments occurred and the amount of the price adjustment.

The title doesn't need to be fancy but I definitely want to reach out to motivated sellers, create my buyers list, and market my business.

We got the cork backed fancy NuCore with 6-mil top layer (waterproof and lifetime warranty for residential and 15 year for commercial) for $2.89/square ft -- that just needs a moisture underlayment @$.11/ square ft over a concrete subfloor and doesn't need anything over tile or any other kind of subfloor. 

I just googled $8000 shed, and at that price level, sheds are some fancy chit!

Even a single "routine" inspection at any point during the tenancy probably would have prevented this.