Things you should have done/should do now!

You're the proud owner of your property. What you must have done by now is
1. Taken out house insurance - the best policy is to use a broker, even so their does not seem to be a lot of competition for policies. As far as I can elicit Foremost are most competitive on single properties and Erie and Niagara most competitive on houses of multiple occupancy. The most important thing to do is to ensure that they are kept informed as to whether the property is occupied or not. I tend to view the insurances as total catastrophe policies and have not claimed for the large number of minor incidents that can occur. I would like to hear of other's experiences in this area?
2. Opened a USD bank account in the USA. There are a number of options here. I chose to open a HSBC personal account in Buffalo. I made it easier by having a Premier account in the UK which means that you get no Bank charges in the US and it is easy and cheap to deposit or withdraw from the US account.
3. You must get an ITIN number from the IRS. I initially tried to do this through the US Embassy in London, who claim to act as an IRS office, but in fact after reading about how to do it applied direct to the IRS in Austin. A useful tip is that the help lines at the IRS are really good. Experienced tax officials are extremely courteous, knowledgeable and helpful. The process did take 4-6 weeks and you cannot really start it until you own your first property. I will deal with the whole question of tax and which forms to use in other blog posts. You must however get an ITIN number because I found that some of the Housing Agencies would not deal with you without one and I lost a number of tenants and several months rent because I obviously didn't have one Day 1.
4. A Property Manager from before Day 1 - this probably the most important area and I will return to it in many future blogs.