About the only creature comforts we added were leather furnishings, a persian rug, good internet and cable TV, and a comfortable queen bed. 

I closed on the house with 20% down and put another $8k into cosmetic upgrades and new furniture.

Put about $6k more into cosmetic upgrades, furniture, etc and then listed the property in the short term market.

Full of garbage and furniture and random belongings.

We didn't want furniture being moved up and down the house and this avoids any possible move-in/move-out damage.And, we mainly rent to traveling nurses and professionals. 

Read this forum for tips on furniture/bedding/towels and setup.

my rentals are in Hollywood, the best was some years ago when I first started, got called to a very nice ladies apartment for some general maintenance, I had seen her at the building in passing and made small talk previously....but, what I did not know until that very moment when I walked into her apartment, was that she worked from home, as a dominatrix.....she had a 4x4 cage in the middle of the living room, chains from the ceiling, leather covered saw horse, and a rather large opened armoire filled with every size and type of wips and various other adult devices.

I really want to turn those properties into Airbnb listings due to promising ROI and no HOA restrictions … The biggest challenge for me is to hire someone on the ground to set it up and coordinate with vendors, for example running errands to pick up the keys from my agent, purchase / receive / assembly furniture, installing smart lock so I can have full control over my property remotely..

It will probably take you at least a year to actually cash flow an arbitrage unit, since you can't really call it cash flow until your revenues have paid off all the furniture. 

But if you look at it as property with 4% coc (which may be challenging to achieve) then it will be disappointing.In a city like Houston, I personally look at an owner occupant house as a depreciating liability - just like car, clothes, shoes, furniture - something that I will use everyday and hence I should like it as a place to live rather than an investment.