
In earlymy husband and I decided to purchase our first home in my hometown of Greenfield, Indiana. Since we had moved there from a one-bedroom apartment with only two windows and a total of square feet, it felt houaes a mansion to us. All of rrenting sudden, we went from sleeping, eating, and living in rooms to having more rooms than we needed. A few months after the purchase of our own home, we put 10 percent down on a brick ranch nearby and turned it into our first rental. We learned most of what we knew about finding and screening tenants, creating and signing leases, and managing our properties on the Internet. Everyone we knew thought we were crazy, until they finally realized monney, despite our lack of experience as landlords, we were, in fact, making it work. Fast forward almost ten years, and our properties are still standing and as profitable as. Of course, family members and friends who once thought we were crazy have changed their tune over the years. All the while, our tenants actually paid off the properties with their money — not. And there are plenty of things I would do differently if I. One of the first lessons we learned about owning rentals came as a huge, scary surprise and ended with a night of tears and weeks of stress. The problem was, I had based the rental price on our old mortgage bill — not the new one.