Hi all,

Are there any GLPers here who buy/rent homes with success? I've worked on my fair share of fixer-uppers for landlords, and have finally decided it's time to do less of making money for others when I can do the same for myself.

I have been shopping around low priced homes in the 10-20k range for starts in the surrounding city of Pittsburgh, in order to get my feet wet. Obviously at that price, these places are pretty run down, but the work doesn't push me away at all.

What I'm more or less asking is if anyone has any advice on funding the first few homes. I'm not quite sure what road to take with that. I'll be cutting my costs by doing the work myself and eliminating most labor expenses.

My other concern is when the home is up and ready to rent out, what should I do about insuring, and dealing with bad tenants?

In the mean time, I explore an option in screenwriting and throwing together a few novels to sell in hopes of one day leaving the construction field.