I own a few rentals, depends on what you want to accomplish with them and how much work you want to do.
Do you want cash flow or equity?
Easy money and more headaches? Less money and potential easier tenants?
Long-term tenants? College kids?
We own college rentals, the money is greater because I can charge by the room instead of the entire unit. We also rent a residential condo that was our former residence, the income is slim to none and we have problems with our HOA allowing rentals.
Expect to put down a minimum of 20-30% and the best rate you will be able to get is prime +1%. A lot of banks are shying away from income properties, so qualifying for conventional loans has become more difficult, expect to get better rates on 5-10 year balloon, ARM or <15 year loans.
It is a headache, its a lot of work, but you get your own hours. With rentals expect to break even a lot, there are always expenses and lots of unforseen issues. Our rental 'income' last year was enough to reduce our tax liability into the lowest possible bracket. Thank you very much, $5000 in our rental vehichle repairs, 2 new wells in 9 months, evictions and vacancy.
If you have specific questions about anything, shoot me a PM or post them in here. Its not like I am a some super slumlord with all the answers, doing something other people haven't.
Reading:
Your local Circuit Court documents on:
Small Claims
General Civil
Evictions
Landlord/Tenant Rights
Look at lots of leases, seriously, start throwing parts of leases together to make one that works for you. Our lease changes every time we change tenants because of one issue or another. I have seen leases as short as 3/4 of a page and as long as 12 pages, ours being in the middle of those extremes.
I apologize for this being a jumbled mess of crap.
