This takes a LOT of my time.If I went to get a judgement against this tenant for the balance of the lease (if I could even find them to serve court papers), the judge would tell me to go pound sand, absorb it as a business expense, go re-rent the apartment, move on with my life and quit bothering him with this "nonsense."

I've been reading along and trying to absorb as much knowledge as I can in the last 4 years.  

I am new to real estate investing, in fact, I've spent the last few months absorbing as much information as I can.

Out of the goodness of our MACK standard (treating all like family), we decided to help absorb some of the pain by crediting him two months of rent - again, not something that was required but something we felt would show we cared.

If you are in a long foreclosure state and your holding period runs from 12-18 months, that can be a big number to absorb so it better be in there.I hope this helps.

If you like the idea of being super hands on, make sure that flies with the wife and kids ;) But in all seriousness, one of the major roadblocks new investors hit is that their enthusiasm takes them out of their reality and they end up getting stuck in investments that either don't return the way they want because they didn't do enough due diligence or they are too much of a headache and negatively impact the work/life balance.Once you have a handle on what options are available to you and you and the wife have decided what will work for you right now, the amount of information you need to absorb will be greatly diminished, as will your chances of being paralyzed by info overload ;) And remember, there's no reason you can't begin your investing journey with one strategy and then change tacks later once you have the financial flexibility to stretch your wings a bit.

I’ve been absorbing BP and all things RE over the past few years, and am hoping to buy a STR very soon and build a portfolio.

Soft surfaces absorb and hold smell.

For example, high property tax is a huge problem for 1~4 unit properties while not a problem at all for large apartment building because it will be absorbed into the expenses.Lastly, I recall one interesting personal experience mentioned by author Lance Edwards in his book ”How to make big money in small apartments”.

Regarding budgeting, if you have ample capital and can absorb the large cost, then you can have a slightly increased capex to replenish the near term expenditure.