They should know basics, but they often give wrong information and I find myself correcting it regularly.

But in our market, they are just as often the guys who aren't big enough or organized enough to get their supplies delivered.

Sort of like DeBeer's keeping the supply of diamonds low.

We bought our first property in Aug and rented it for Sept 1 and were able to count that as a year when getting a new loan because it was on our tax returns - so essentially we were landlords for 1 year and 4 months but they were fine with it.Note that if you take a loss on your tax return that money is taken out of your regular income and will hurt you when applying for a new loan

I attend a half dozen or so on a semi-regular basis (depending on topic).

For example, NY appreciates every year because their is finite supply and the demand is ever increasing (although I don't invest there because that can't be sustainable at some point!)

Make sure you buy a policy that handles vacancy as most regular policies will start to have issues after 60 days.

Also just a thought to put out there....Does anyone do in-home mailing and if so how much on average does it cost to buy the printer, ink cartridge, and paper material needed to make post cards and also print regular white letters??

It's most likely a leaky/pierced supply line or a gutter/roof leak.

I also used regular yellow copy paper (no lines) after the legal pad style paper kept jamming.