Be sure not to get professional tenants in place.

.- When necessary, seek advice from licensed professionals, such as attorneys and financial planners.Even with a lot of book knowledge, you will find actual experience extremely valuable.

I'm finding there is a crowd of college kids & young professionals hungry for a nice rental unit (and willing to pay a bit more for it!)

You must have a professional and straight forward approach when speaking with the seller, you must be clear and treat them with respect.

The thing I like about a yard sign is people who call off that are 1) out looking for a place, and 2) have see the place and the neighborhood.

Here there are actually a ton of real professionals.

If not, here is a link to it, and I suggest that you spend some time reading it: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/17612-where-does-the-5-rule-come-from-If you use the 50% rule as a guide,which includes Professional Property Management, you're losing $$$ every month.Even if you manage the property, it drops down to about 35% a month, still losing $$$ every month.Raymond

I have been reading non stop for awhile now and also out looking at properties in my town.

Having one with little experience could mean screw ups and you'll be paying to fix their mistakes as they will never admit them and won't work again for nothing, least I never saw one do that.The best thing to do is approach an attorney or any professional with the costs involved in the scope of work of what must be done instead of asking how much per hour, but you need to know that too.

I got it about 90% right and still spent some bucks on professional help the first tax year I used it because I didn't get it 100% right.