Property managers typically charge between 8-10% of your gross rent, so if your property rents for $500 a month (low, just a nice round number) and your PM charges 10%, you will pay them $600 a year, which really isn't much for the service they provide.

I would be interested in what areas are hot and any A, B, C properties and typical cap rate type information.

They pay the mortgage and my utilities (essentially living and owning a home for free - in your shoes you would be cash flowing).Then, depending on what you are doing for a job (or college), it'd be good to establish yourself at work and save enough for your rainy day account (savings in case you lose your job) and then start saving more for a rental property.

Cap Ex and Repairs can typically be closer to 8-10% each.

Typically, a buyer can't/won't/shouldn't take control of a property until they close on it, because they do not own the property until they close.If you rent out some other person's property (or estate's, in this case), I hope you plan to get some sort of written agreement from the current owner/estate.

@Kyle Jones if you have any sort of LOC you can use that money for your down payment so essentially you have used other peoples money to purchase.

Varun,Typically, the Insurance company would not contact the Mortgage company unless the policy is being cancelled.  

I'm working with the owner of an almost 100 year old small (<900 sq. ft) craftsman bungalow with small rooms typical of a home of this vintage.

The HML will do 70%, what does a gap lender typically cover?

A regular conventional loan for an investment property doesn't require you to live in the house for a year.FHA requires that you must owner-occupy the property but not regular conventional investment loans.They will typically require 20% down though so if you're looking for 3.5% you won't find that if non-owner-occupied.