Each persons ability to take advantage of opportunities and/or incentives will be unique.Overall you want the find the highest and best use of your cash that delivers the fastest return.If applicable to an owner occupant purchase, the best use of funds would be to accomplish getting down payment assistance, utilize a 203k or HomeStyle loan (to force the equity), and to house hack.

But it is very much applicable to single family rental and residential units simply by getting bridge financing and a post transfer cash out refi.

This criteria happens to pretty much exclude all S8 applicants. 

If you need to get it rented fast, a great property manager would list the home for $2100 (below market) and get several quality applicants competing against each other to drive the price up to the max so you don't risk vacancy by starting out too high and gradually reducing to find the sweet spot.

Every adult must be screened and approved, period.Here's a detailed guide on how to screen applicants: Application Screening Guide

I tried to rent one of these buildings for a developer. it was brand new construction, really well done.One after another is was voucher applicants who had criminal records, you had no idea who was actually going to be living there, some were high out of their mind and/or drunk, average credit score was 500, consistent late payments, eviction records, etc.By some miracle I rented one place out to 2 young girls looking to save some money.

Not sure how many PMCs you've had bad experiences with, but we'll take exception to:"Then do a thorough research on tenant applicants (note: leaving this to a PM may be hazardous to your financial health)".BP seems to have more threads about screening mistakes by DIY landlords as opposed to PMCs.Now, if you'd have mentioned Maintenance, you'd get no argument from me:) Even the PMC industry acknowledges maintenance as one of the biggest challenges.Rereading my post, I kinda see how I sounded negative toward PMs.  

In terms of other factors, I'm not sure there's a lot because I did have some people express interest in filling out an application before, and I actually got really close with one potential tenant, but it was because of the alcohol policy that he ultimately decided to back out.

@Joe Norman Those were the big 3 I figured would help the most, but I think wasn't sure how much actual applicability they had as a business owner/investor.

How many applicants did you interview?