I look for the basics(tools, transportation, professionalism, working weekends, being on call, previous income etc)3.

* which areas in Tampa offer stable rental income?

Sounds like you own it free and clear - which means the rental income would be mostly yours.  

Appreciation, perceived or otherwise, would impact a non-GAAP balance sheet and not pertain to the income statement.

I google'd around for the USPAP standards after reading why he said it was a duplex, and sure enough it was a duplex according to USPAP standards, sorry agent, sorry seller, and sorry county of Alameda (he was super liberal with market rents on the 2 units that he had to call 1 unit, because it was one GIANT unit, so the rental income was actually fine). 3.

Just got out of the military and looking to start investing as a part time income.

Your bookkeeping system can tag income and expenses with a property ID or use subaccounts to keep track of income and expenses by property.Since you are a sole proprietor, there is no issue with co-mingling funds and using the same checking account for both personal and rental activities, but, it is much simpler for record keeping to have a separate checking/savings account for the rentals.I have charged stuff on my personal credit card for my rental properties, because I get "rewards" for my charges.  

Would be important to know why there is so much delinquency in the HOA given that it is in a good market with high incomes.

It will show you what he claims as expenses, income, etc.

For example, Fannie Mae has no less than three different ways of calculating rental income depending on the scenario (one of which is [ Rent * 75% - PITI ] that is frequently mentioned on the forums here).