Note that 401k's, IRA's and other retirement accounts can be used, but there is a discount factor applied to account for the taxes and penalties you would incur if you were forced to liquidate them.When computing your DTI ratio, the lender will take the rent * 0.75.

Given a price, rent, and possible financing terms, you can compute how much income you will produce.

In all areas I've lived or bought in, the depreciaion computes as follows.

When I get a receipt for a rental expense nowadays I force myself to write out what it was for (and which house it was for) on the receipt so that I don't end up on the computer looking up dozens of Home Depot SKU numbers later on.I do see what you mean about the depreciation.

. - Of course, keeping backups in multiple locations is key -- I'm curious if people are destroying their paper copies -- it sounds like that's not the case as of yet.To create an @mention, check this tutorial:@Mentions Come to BiggerPocketsJosh, I've been storing the tenant applications and credit reports on the computer and backing them up to CrashPlan.

I have worked in the computer industry for 2 decades now and the Bigger Pockets forum confuses the heck out of me...: )What is the best forum to start reading up on some of the things you are talking about on the larger buildings?

I also ran a small management company, managing 100 units, solo, without a computer.

I"m trying to choose between the new Iphone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy 3 and the reviews are mixed, so I thought to ask those who use them regularly here; I also suspect that most of the regular contributers at BP are using their phones to post instead of sitting at laptops/desktops.

It seems to me that a program would not be difficult but the data would be endless and unreliable and while I'm not techie, I can't imagine my laptop running such a program.....seems I'd need the computing capacity of the NSA!

I then do a quick criminal background check on the computer and I won't meet with anyone who doesn't qualify (no felonies in the past 5 years, no more than 2 misdemeanors in the past 3 years).