As a newbie, and one month into owning , we (husband and I) feel like we def jumped in with our eyes wide SHUT!

Most pet fees are refundable in their eyes.

A single family could ultimately be a lower price point for you but depending on how much money you have available to spend on the purchase and any repairs/maintenance, either one could work.Have you found any SF or duplexes that catch your eye or know how much money you have to spend?

Get someone on the ground to be your eye and ears and lookout for your interest.

However I believe it’s great to have two independent sets of eyes (in addition to your own) on the books to make sure everything is accounted for and running smoothly.

With the exception of building a trailer on the property (these are hard to finance), this sounds like a good plan AND if you are using it for your business AND your business pays more than 50% of the rent (if you have more than 1 tenant), then this is a more financeable property in the eyes of banks and credit unions as it would be consider a commercial "owner-occupied" property. 

Given your buy box, keep an eye out for properties with strong rental demand and minimal major repairs.

Curious how this will play out in the courts (granted it's LTR) and affect pricing products used for STR such as PriceLabs (which I use but have to seriously manually adjust for very specific reasons). I'm aware that ...

Glad you made your way here.. are you eyeing long-term rentals or short-term flips?

I think the main points would apply to you as well.STR is great, as long as you go into it with eyes wide open and reasonable expectations.