PS before the hedge funds jumped in about 2011 to 2012 I was an activce courthouse buyer in Henry county and a few of the counties on the north side of Atl metro so been to many of the  auctions having them all on one day is a cluster .. you have multiple criers crying sales simultainously it can be hard to follow but you can also squeeze out one that folks missed.. we did quite well until the hedge funds knocked us little guys out of the area..

Myself I am not sure that those buyers would go for tight living conditions that are condos and for sure are not going to be renters..  

Also, our market has many First time home buyers, so to fix&flip we needed contractors which required much more $$.

In many of these financings, the buyer paid a purchase price based at least partially on the increased cash flow generated by the property being “proven” as a successful STR.  

I said no but it maybe cost you 50 bucks a month other wise your tenant is paying off your principal and 3 to 5 years goes aweful quick then you own it free and clear and you just put 10% down and tenant paid of the rest what are you really going to do with 100 a month anyway... it was funny that was a hard sell. but I can tell you I did about 50 of the no interest and as they paid off you talk about a happy buyer getting their reconveyance deed in such a short amount of time.. 

I'm an agent and investor and about 80% of my buyer clients all house hack.

I'll only add when talking to brokers have a "buy box" defined and research commercial deals to understand it as best you can before you have your first meeting or your broker contact will likely consider you to be a low-chance buyer and not take you seriously.

This will go a long way in creating a network and future sellers and buyers will start to see you as a resource in this arena.  

Since I am having my prospective tenants cover the cost I would prefer to have the lowest cost option that gives you the most bang for your buck, but at the same time I want to be sure that what I am paying for is reliable.

Buyer is a newly formed LLC out of Houston, so even farther away.