I already have my eye on 2 or 3, but I would like to find a realtor who works in the area.

An agent has a fiduciary duty to protect your best interests, which include protection from the many different liabilities that can pop up during the course of a transaction.

Ask for them to remove the tree.Fifth, see if you can apply to get a protective order from a court to maintain the property. 

Investment mortgages, like DSCR loans for investment properties, typically come with prepayment penalties (PPP) to protect against prepayment risk and the keep portfolio CPR in line.

Im sure the cost is a hard pill to swallow but try and keep your eye on the long term prize of making $ on a thriving STR biz.

However, as I said the "big D" has left me in debt up to my eye balls!

As a Baselane user and fellow landlord, I really want to understand how this went down and what I can do to protect myself.

Since you generally won't know for sure when a party will end, you can try to protect yourself when entering the party by buying into the type of property investment that will suffer less should the party come to an end.

Furnace filters can go either way; some landlords handle it to protect the HVAC system, while others leave it to tenants with a reminder schedule.

Just keep an eye on how both markets are performing, and maybe start small, like taking out $50k, so you can test the waters without over-leveraging.