One of the reasons prices are going up in many U.S. neighborhoods is because investors are buying houses, sprucing them up and then renting them out. Landlords like these don't have a great image. But in Oakland, Calif., they can be an enormous force for change and good.

I'm seriously thinking of purchasing a small (six-unit) apartment building in a college town. I've never been a landlord and I'm already a single father of two with a full-time job. Am I NUTS? Clay, College Park, MD