If I were you I would spend a good amount of time hitting the phones trying to connect with as many re-fi lenders as possible.

You'll spend a few thousand per year, but if you close 1 deal a year you should be able to earn those fees back through agent commissions 2.

I spend $150K remodeling a beautiful home which included foundation repair, new ac's, bathrooms, kitchen, flooring etc...

Start a spreadsheet with all necessary items of a home (you could even include sub-lines of high, mid, low grade) and spend 30 minutes on homedepot.com just to get an idea of what things cost these days.

I just wanted to get something under my belt without having to spend alot of my own money.

This can be done virtually as well, just prepare to spend some time researching the area.

There really isn't a right or wrong here, it just depends on your goals, how much time you want to spend managing the units.  

I question to you would then be do you think your efforts are best spent filing the police report and chasing the tenant or possible spending it speaking with your local and state legislators explaing your situation and helping them to understand the impact of the things they vote on. 

Investment Info:

Townhouse buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $142,000

We used Pathway to Purchase to buy and hold a property. Drawbacks are you cannot turn them into rentals for a year so they h...

The more cash your spend, the more you have to recover and the less you have to assist in that recovery.If you want a longer explanation,  PM me.