This could be an opportunity to share what you've learned.

You can look on websites like https://www.corporatehousingbyowner.com/search/United-States... and https://www.furnishedfinder.com to see what similar houses are rented for.

For example, to get up-to-date property tax data you would need to scrape every county's tax data website (thousands of different websites, data formats, issues, etc...) then aggregate and clean the data.

Dennis' dad and I actually tripped over something similar back in Chandler.. we learned to tap into city planning websites and even call the permit offices directly to get a real sense of their backlogs.

I got a hold of the owner by looking up his information on the county website.

I personally like the buy-and-hold strategy and we help clients who share this long-term, wealth building mindset. 

There are a lot of websites that offer the course online, or if you have a college near you, they also typically offer a class that satisfies the pre-licensing requirement.

Also any tips for automating this as much as possible and how to protect the property financially and property management would be appreciated.I ALMOST understand the rental arbitrage strategy if building a company scaling with say 30 + units and looking for high short term cash flow.  

You should to talk to @Andrew Postell He is the best mortgage guy for this.

This will set up your buy and hold business long term.