The tenant left feces on the freshly painted walls and the new carpet, left a huge trash bag full of rotting food in the house, with maggots all over it. 

In other words, it's a lot cheaper for the state to pay out unemployment than it is to pay out other safety net stuff.

It might be safer to have safety and be able to sell any property without a bad situation because of the Design Company.  

Food for thought.  

Make sure the property cash flows and is got a good margin of safety. 

We then started keeping our dog food (which was in the house) in a sealed container and asked our tenants to do the same. 

Video Production Specialist by day for a safety company designing promotional marketing material.Hobbies include: Hiking, paintball, cooking, and weight lifting, and of course...real estate!

Anyway, just food for thought! 

Always, always, always choose income over equity when that equity is not yet realized.I would buy a multi unit where your income from the rental units can contribute towards your mortgage payments.When just getting started safety, and assurance should be foremost on your mind.Even if you do not realize a gain in equity having rental units will help you make your mortgage payments on time and contribute to you building up good credit which is an underestimated value by many a new comer in real estate investing.Even if you can afford a single family home do not buy it if it's going to put you out on a limb spending most of what you have or may have coming in.I always think like this, if I have $10.00 I will consider spending $2.00 and keep $8.00 in reserve.

Flip enough times and you will be able to do as @J Scott describes, which is funnel the profits into another investment vehicle that is a much more passive income stream.RE is attractive because the sheer returns can outperform just about everything you can think of in terms of relative safety of principal vs. rate of return.