The hope is that will help you decrease expenses and/or gain income.Always remember to do the math analysis and try to look at prospective properties or have a contingency clause in the purchase contract that allows you some upfront time (about 10 days) to make a detailed inspection and possibly back out of the deal without a penalty that hurts you too much.  

Then your concerns about jeopardizing your firm becomes null.

I checked out the house this morning and I even saw an added value because the other neighbor had just installed a really big firm fence that looks good and sturdy right next to the backyard.

A strong fence makes for good neighbors:The prospect of renting to friends and family is something that comes up from time to time.

That said I think I should stand firm on my original offer, $10k under list.

I agree with Karen, go to a smaller boutique firm if you're not interested in cold-calling, but there's a draw-back.

If you are open to purchasing HUD homes to flip or as rental in the suburbs of Chicago I can introduce you to CEO of RE Firm who is contracted by HUD and sold close to 1400 last year.

Do you know ANY wholesaling firms that get most of their business through phone?

A family member of mine hired a handyman who gave a firm quote for bathroom remodel.

So if you listed it last year for $1000 and now want to re-rent for $1200 prospective tenants looking at your listing can see that you raised rents by $200.BTW, you can also do this same thing on houses that were previously listed but taken off the market, it keeps the data there, you cant search by resently rented but you can just click on arbitrary houses until you find one that was previously rented by seeing it under price history.