I always viewed it as "who cares how much money I put down", I plan to pay them all of before I retire as part of my ultimate strategy anyways. 

Their view is that an arcade game is cool for 10 minutes, but a PS5 is something that they would enjoy for their entire stay. 

Figure out a question set that helps dive into their expertise as investor-friendly agents, ask about their experience in the investment real estate space, and have them send you a few properties that could meet your goals to show that they can provide quality properties for your to analyze (hint: this is also good to see if they overpromised on their market [ex - Raleigh for cash flow]).Also with the new lawsuit, any agent that knows what they're doing will require you to sign an agency agreement prior to viewing a home.

I am going to see if I can switch to a local Wisconsin insurance that reflects our local risk level in their premiums.Many of the homes in the Pacific Palisades are 3-5 million, but when you look on Google Street View, most are very modest homes from the 1960s (there are some $20m ultra luxury mansions too), so a lot is the land value, the home replacement value on a 1600sqft may be what - 500k at the most?

I agree with Collin.The Smokies do have a lot of competition, so you need to have a view, decent location, good to great amenities etc to stand out.We have a 6-bedroom cabin there, but I imagine a 3 to 4 bedroom would be in the sweet spot of not too big or not too small.

@Luís FerreiraThank you for sharing your view!

I have been tweaking pricing periodically and viewing comps to other cabins in the area.Will definitely look into Trip Shock and the affiliate/ partner options. 

I am hoping to view all cases among ranges of dates (i.e 2 week increments). 

I've seen many landlords that get lucky with good renters for a long period of time, then everything falls apart when they have to deal with real difficulty.I looked up your property on Google Maps, and the street view looks bad.

Only thing I would add here is to take a birds eye view of the area and try to decide if it will gentrify in your favor so the property appreciates at a higher rate than other areas.