I'd keep rent low, no car note, frivolous spending minimized, retirement accounts maxed(401k & IRA), savings a high allocation.

Too many people dont understand that there is destructive debt-debt on assets that depreciate in value such as car payments and typical overspending of plastic; And constructive debt-debt which enables one to borrow at one rate and use those funds to acquire assets that appreciate in value and return a much higher rate-such as real estate. 

Right now I'm assembling a mailing list to start generating leads, and I'm wondering if I should automatically filter those out.

@Matthew Banks  if you want to be a successful real estate investor, self-managing your own properties (for a while) will give you invaluable experience--and without that experience, it will be very difficult to become a successful real estate investor (with or without PMs).Think of it this way: trying to manage a PM (or team of PMs) without any property management experience is a bit like trying to manage a car repair shop with zero experience fixing cars, or trying to coach a team to an NBA championship with no basketball experience, or trying to manage a law firm with no legal experience. 

Depending on how you set up your mailers, it could take a good amount of time to create & mail these yourself, OR you could use an automatic mailer service like Open Letter Marketing to do everything for you!

And to tag onto what Tom said...a property in DC owned by an LLC is automatically subject to rent control.

if the house looks unoccupied (ie no car, no answer), open the door and announce yourself. 

I know sub contractors do it all the time on new constructions and I believe car insurance companies will sue and place liens on personal residences too. 

@Jason Brown in California, we have forms written by the California Associaton of Realtors (CAR) that I use.

This was my first large project that included an addition of 900 sqft and a 2 car garage, all new electrical, plumbing, roof.