The landlord insurance market in Houston, particularly Harris County, has become more challenging, leading to fewer insurers and higher premiums.

Did you do the market research?

Find an investor-friendly real estate agent in the market you want to invest in because a typical realtor is not as familiar with how to evaluate the potential of a property for investment purposes.

You asked about the risks and benefits of using leverage in real estate investing.The reality is leverage cannot be avoided, usually, in real estate investing.The risks are you get over-leveraged and your don't have enough cashflow and reserves to weather a market shift, extended vacancy, or major repair.The advantage is you increase your ROI by using other people's money and as little of your own money as possible.

You still have a month but I do think MTRs in markets with a lot of competition can be a bit harder to get bookings on before you have reviews.

Typically, when rentals have been on the market for that long here in Columbus, it's because they're asking too much for rent. 

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

There are some that will post on the Bigger Pockets market place but you'll find tons of them on Facebook.  

In my market (lehigh valley PA) I can get this done for around 5k or less including the units, materials and labor.

@Marcus Auerbach I have seen marketed a closed-cell padding for basements desired to reject moisture associated with that space.