Highlighting the strong profit potential and taking measures to address any concerns about costs, scope, or holding risks will make this an even stronger pitch.

One of the biggest challenges of investing in Rustbelt cities is knowing where to invest and properly understanding the cooresponding pros & cons.Here's copy & paste advice we share to help to address this challenge:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a Class A property in Class D area, what quality of tenant will you get?

Why are you entering a hospitality business to automate your (im)personal responses when guests have an issue?

The issue you will have is that finding out what a property actually rented for is difficult.

One issue I see with this is that I do not have a real estate license so I don't think that would create any issues with STR management, but as for MTR management it seems like there are certain limitations without a license - any feedback on that would be appreciated-Staging properties primarily for FSBO's as I know properties listed by realtors will typically have an in-house staging offering.

They are paying for some repairs now after I've had several issues and a brand new tenant moved out, but I'm still paying a mortgage without any rent coming in during those months. 

Various repair issues, bad tenant, and now this issue.

The reason sellers cannot sell these properties through the traditional market is often due to certain issues, and 98% of the time, these issues are not beneficial to you as a buyer.

If you want to provide your property's address, I can give you some additional feedback. 

Purchasing a STR in a somewhat sketch area is a terrible idea and as others have mentioned, is going to open you up to potential issues.