Joel, Thanks so much for the link. 

Tenant will prove dirty apartment at move in with pictures ,call the tenant apologize for the misunderstanding, return the money and move on; Tenant  will most likely win in court and you will most likely pay deposit plus penalties x3, plus your lawyer's inflated fees good luck

This is the best place to start for any Real Estate InvestorHere is a link I created that has help many new investors, I hope this helps you as wellhttp://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93/topics/136241-new-investor-help?

Many members are experts in their respective fields related to real estate investing, whether that is real estate brokerage, wholesaling, flipping, buy and hold, lending, self-directed IRA and Solo 401k investing, or tax and legal guidance.There are some pretty cool discounts on various products and services offered as Perks to BP members that you might want to check out: https://www.biggerpockets.com/perks/proIf you haven’t checked it out already, the Bigger Pockets blog features links to their awesome podcast and many great articles: https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/The site has quite a few tools that can be helpful for new members.

I just came across this link, which helped answer some of my questions.

Build back links and drive traffic to it (bigger pockets is a good back link).

Try and ask around locally or any neighbors if there are any about the home's condition and ownership status.If that fails you can get the owner's information and the property's tax status from the tax office (link) or another useful tool for owner and property information is the Galveston Central Appraisal District (link).  

Great link!

Well my first question will be, did I link people's names with the "@" correctly?

At the end of this message is a link to a financial model that you are welcome to borrow if you want to model the cashflows of your property.