@Bruce SteinetzEven if someone give you a referral, what meets their expectations, may not meet yours.In our experience, the #1 mistake owners make when selecting a Property Management Company (PMC) is ASSUMING instead of CONFIRMING.It's often a case of not doing enough research, as they don't know what they don't know!

There are a lot of factors to consider when selecting the best strategy, such as your current tax situation, the location of the property, and other relevant factors.

Membership gives the tenant an impression they are not tenants, but they are by law.  2.

Check out this thread:- www.biggerpockets.com/forums/223/topics/304169-fir...The trick seems to be: you need to come up with the cash FIRST (from any source you can) to pay for an under-priced property, THEN apply to finance it as "delayed financing", at which time your carefully selected Lender will give you 70% of its APPRAISED value - up to the FULL value of what you paid (whichever is less).

I also show them things I do when visiting a property, such as turning the shades so the seams are facing the wall, straightening the area rugs, cleaning the grill grate... not to say "do these things", but to teach the critical eye and to walk in the guest's shoes, thinking about the details that might affect their impressions and experience.

@Kyle Hassig   I talked to several brokers, PM and inspectors first and identified some properties, then went out and walked various properties with them and selected the people I wanted to use. 

If something is selected as harmful and not moral by society to a level it should not be, like say Baby Seal Slippers, society will vote with it's commerce and that item will not exist. 

Crime has unfortunately gotten out of control  in select areas but the Chicagoland area in general has seen a loss of people wanting to live there.  

I do this for every rehab, and for me, it's a personal walk-through of the house that I do myself, not a checklist for someone else (and I'm normally big on checklists and delegating, but not for this super-critical task)...In fact, this is one of the few things that I don't trust to my contractors, my project managers or even my wife to do...you only get one chance to impress a buyer, an inspector and an appraiser, and if there are punchlist items that aren't fixed, you can easily blow a sale or take a hit on price.Basically, I step into every room, look at every wall, carpet and ceiling, open and close every door and window, test every appliance, test every electrical fixture (I even use an electrical tester on all the outlets), test every plumbing fixture, test the HVAC, etc.At first, I would walk around with an inspector checklist...but it's all second nature.

This impressed him, and sparked a conversation on the significant NIMBY movement in our town."