OK, well there's your first mistake.

It is likely that you will make some mistakes.

made a similar mistake earlier this year with one or the other.

@Adam Ferro Ah, my mistake - I thought you were going to hold the property long term.

Thanks John Its definitely been hard not to stress about all the mistakes made/money lost at this point, but I agree with what you said and will re-evaluate in on year

And when I tell people, I get the same old argument "Oh I just hire a PM, then I don't have to deal with it, problem solved" - and they don't realize how naive they sound...I was lucky enough that I have never made the mistake of buying in the inner city; frankly it was only because I had just arrived in the US and it was too much of a culture shock and also a language barrier - I just could not understand some people what they were telling me - so I decided to look in nicer parts of town.

One of the takeaways from reading "How to invest in real estate" was to take action, always keep moving forward even through mistakes, hardships, etc.

I made the mistake of assuming they would know I was serious by flying out there, but the response was lukewarm.

Sounds like someone made a big mistake. 

You will learn a lot and want to limit your mistakes at the start.