Start by building a solid team, analyzing deals carefully, and making your first purchase to test and refine your strategy.Good luck!

At another property with just the sidewalk I let the tenants take care of it, but the liability of these steep stairs makes it too important for it to be haphazard or me having to scold them to shovel and salt the walk and steps.I know in snowy areas people with houses contract plowing for the winter at a flat rate.

Makes me think they could be too busy taking care of a new baby to attend to guest issues? 

Read books and maybe take on the occasional 3 day seminar. 

You can also search Google and read reviews.

There are a couple of things that come to mind, if a payment is missed the lender cares, if the servicer goes out of business or misses a substitution of trustee, the lender cares, if the borrower goes to the lender to try to get removed from the loan (usually to buy another house) the lender cares, if the property gets caught up in a bankruptcy or divorce, the court cares and that means the lender gets involved.

I just finished reading The ABCs of Real Estate Investing and ABCs of Buying Rental Property by Ken McElroy.

Also, there are many integrations available with QuickBooks so that receipts, bills, invoices can be sent to Quickbooks or outside software to read each and automatically create the transaction and we just have to review and approve.

I'm currently reading David Greene's "BRRRR" book and I will be utilizing my VA Loan as a first home purchase (duplex) for my first home utilizing the VA Loan.

We are more likely to simply reduce our asking rent than offer a concession.FWIW, I did not read the attached article.