If anyone is in a similar to me (ie getting close to taking action or  have recently done so with US prop #1), I would love to connect via a recurring weekly call. 

Everything I read seems to emphasize making sure to accurately and completely estimate your costs up front to make sure you're dealing with a good investment, but so many people's estimates seem to simplify the costs to only recurring monthly and highly predicatable costs like taxes and utilities....etc. 

It has lead to much recurring business and much better treatment when quick action was required.

What was initially an exciting first process has turned into an anxiety filled burden.

Can anyone relate to my anxiety??

From an agent perspective it has been telling to see how sellers respond at this request, which is usually somewhere on the spectrum between anger and anxiety.  

Networking has always been a struggle for me, but that's do to my own anxiety and something I'm working on everyday.

I'm not planning to rent out the entire house as a short term rental or Airbnb, so I'm just not sure if financially it makes sense to pay the recurring monthly expenses on maintaining the pool.

The rent amount should at a minimum cover your recurring monthly costs, allow for a cash reserve for non-recurring capital expenditures and repair/vacancy-related costs and ideally put some cash into your pocket. 

I would consider an investment in California that yielded $1,000 over PITI to be interesting; $1,000/month cash is morethan sufficient to cover the basic non-recurring expenses of vacancy, maintenance and capital expenditure reserve.