Marie Poe:That would be a good reason to remove the short sale contingency.You still have the issue that when the original closing date comes up and the still hasn't gotten around to looking at the file, the seller won't be able to extend the closing date...as they tend to need to do about 95% of the time...Unless the seller is perfectly happy to sell high enough to pay off the mortgage, I see no reason to do this.

If you don't close, for any reason, you won't get your EM back.If you're trying to buy of the MLS you're probably going to need significant EM.

You're going to need to budget for repairs, capex, as well as vacancy, especially since you'll have to reposition #1 to get it to market rents, and lease up #2.

I'll also take the property manager advice to heart, I'm going to need someone who can look after my rental any time I leave the area and would eventually like to take a cut on income to outsource some of the work to a manager.Speaking hypothetically, do you think it would be better to buy a $50,000 home that rents for $650 vs a $25,000 home that rents for $450 because of fewer tenant issues?

- An HML is likely going to need at least a week and probably closer to 2-3 weeks on the first deal you work with them.

Personally, I did not appreciate his tone of voice, and he came off as if he was doing me a favor by conducting the inspection.

Generically speaking, you are going to need to have 20% of the purchase price in cash to use as down payment and hopefully some to use as closing costs and expenses.

Major tools can often be rented, if you're going to need them just once.

If you want to pass on all work, be it planning or painting, you are going to need to partner with someone who knows their way around house renovations.

I think there is good potential in some of these areas because people would be drawn to probably better schools, a bit more space, but still be close enough if they had economic reasons to need to be near the bigger cities.Thanks everyone.