1. We invested before in several different properties starting in our late 20s/early 30s, but just got into residential rentals at 40.
2. I just surfed local real estate websites, found houses that looked good and went to see them. Literally only looked at three houses and bought one; then only looked at one house and bought it. That was partly luck but partly also having a very clear idea of what I was looking for, so I only went to see houses that appeared to check all my boxes. The other rentals are part of the property we live in, and again, that was just a matter of surfing real estate sites for years looking for a particular kind of place, and swooping when we saw it.
3. How much work do you put into fixing a house up to make it rentable?
a- About $10k (for a two-unit); b-$0 (great shape, just had it cleaned and it was rented in two weeks); c-one unit required no work (came with a tenant in it) and the other required about $8k.
4. We've only been doing residential rentals for a few years. Haven't had to evict anyone.
5. The number one benefit of real estate investing is that someone sends you a check each month for doing nothing, and that check buys you a house AND gives you a profit each month! Most of the work is up front (fixing up, looking for tenants). If the tenant's plumbing breaks we call a plumber and he goes over to fix it, because we both work, so it's no time out of our day. Basically this is like buying an annuity: you get a check every month and usually don't have to do any additional work for it, beyond what you did when you bought it and right before getting each new lease. And this check increases over time, since rent goes up, while the mortgage generally stays the same (modest increases if insurance goes up, perhaps rare adjustments if property taxes increase--the mortgage itself, though, is fixed).
6. Are there any other comments you'd like to make?
You have to be stringent in evaluating tenants. Credit checks, criminal background checks, calling past landlords, calling employers. I am a total softie and would have great trouble evicting a tenant who was having financial problems, so I have to avoid renting to tenants who are likely to have problems.
That said, we have rented to foreign grad students, on whom it's obviously impossible to do credit or criminal checks, and if they've just arrived from overseas it's generally impossible to call past landlords. I trust the fact that the US Consulate in their home country had to run checks on them before giving them a visa, and those checks were (1) any criminal background? and (2) do they have enough money to support themselves in the US? Also, they're usually scared of running into trouble/being deported, so they're less likely to make trouble. But I do call their colleges and confirm that they're students there.