Rental Houses... How did you get started?

[Incline]

Be prepared for the bad times. I've had rentals for 15 years with little problems. Then a few years ago I bought a house cheap, fixed it up and got a renter. Fast forward 6 months and we are in the process of evicting fit Bob payment. By the time I got him out 9 months had gone by and I had to do about $10k in repair. The guy claimed the house was broken into and vandalized, and even had a police report. Not much i could do. I am still a believer in the rental game, but you need to know something like this will happen to you eventually.

[35remington]

Like many others here, I see the benefits of rental income. However, I'm not getting started until I can buy a rental house outright using cash. The risk is not worth it to me.

[BrandonF]

For those of you that have rental properties. Do you purchase the home warranty policies like American Home Shield that claims to provide coverage for repair/replacement when things go wrong?

Seems like $40/month is cheap if it really does what it says. And @ $100/call seems like that would be a heck of a deal.

[47]

-At least in our case, one stories rent twice as fast and for twice as long as two stories.

-Never have a deposit that is less than it takes to replace all the carpet.

No kidding.

This was me a few months ago after finally getting rid of our last renter...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=entkO2ot-3w"]Braveheart - William Wallace - Burn It! - YouTube[/ame]