My properties will be average or slightly above average for the area and maintained properly.

Atleast, you know they need to maintain a certain level of educatin, work experience and continued professional studies.Best of luck.

In regards to your question about renters insurance I always require tenants to have it and maintain it.As far as your other questions some people go for an LLC to protect their assets (but more work to do tax time to do it right) where others keep it in their name and get landlord insurance and/or umbrella insurance.

How well would someone accustomed to living in a dilapidated house maintain it during the sales process?  

The other side we rent under market value to maintain a certain standard of tenant that we want to live with.

I have no experience in buying or maintaining rental properties and a small savings.

We do this occasionally when a single woman wants to move her boyfriend/girlfriend in, but maintain sole financial responsibility.

To maintain a listing, one of the following should be done once a week.

Diversity of portfolio is good for maintaining capital but if you're having success in one area I would continue with it until you have enough capital that needs to be diversified and then seek out professionals in those spaces who can benefit from helping secure your capital in other asset classes, personal opinion!

Easy to maintain now, with little headaches from the current tenants.