Hire a professional photographer for pictures, find a good cleaning team and handyman, make sure you are comfortable with whatever management platform you will be using to communicate with everyone.

Earlier this month - she sent me pictures of the debris after drywall was fixed AND stated that she was going to pay the rent this month -- LESS the cleaning fees.

For example, I bet some of the listings you are seeing only have one picture (or blurry, rough pictures), or list in the description previous rental rates that are lower than what you'd get with a little grit and patience.

Do both and take pictures if something looks outdated, damaged, or dangerous.

I doubt Community College will teach you anything you will ever use to make money in this business.If it did, the teachers would all be driving Rolls Royce's and living in multi-million dollar mansions--they are not.If you want to learn about SFH's (the bones and the guts of them) vs being a hammer swinger putting up framing (which you don't need to go to college to do)...study to be a home inspector at someplace like the InterNachi... https://www.nachi.org/become-home-inspector.htmOnce you earn the badges you will know your stuff about SFH inspections.But still that's a big commitment and it's not needed to make money in this business...you can hire Home Inspectors, just like you can hire tax pros, bookkeeping, and etc...If you want to learn how to "put in cabinets", "replace a toilet", "shingle a roof", add a dormer, etc...you can learn on YouTube fast and easy.If you want to learn how to frame, get a job 9 to 5 with a framing contractor, and get ready to WORK HARD.Here is a 582 page picture book of how to build a house: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Visual-Guide-Building-House/dp/1600850227Sit down next to a Keurig Machine with a book like this and your favorite mug and learn at your own pace.  

Seems like these companies take the approach of wanting to get your sale once as opposed to having a product that lasts and having a customer for life. 

Though with the price of labor and materials up....and the time with getting materials (I have a custom size window thats going to take 4-6 months right now, and another 90 day window order we are 120 days into now) taking much longer these days, we think we are going to move our criteria up to $225k gross margin in the suburbs and $275k, maybe $300k in DC.

@Jean Pierre,As an Investor-Agent myself, I have had several conversations of this topic with my clients and customers.

If your house is A or B class, you should definitely spring for something nicer like selectblinds.com but you don't need top-dollar, 2-inch plantation blinds in custom colors.If tenants ruin them, you deduct from their deposit just like you will for flooring, paint, appliances, landscaping, etc.

A portfolio loan is when the bank lends their own money and uses their own custom loan product to do so.