I am working on these to see if theres is any way to approve them but I am wondering if my minimum requirements are too high for this area or if I should stick with it.

Also any tips for automating this as much as possible and how to protect the property financially and property management would be appreciated.I ALMOST understand the rental arbitrage strategy if building a company scaling with say 30 + units and looking for high short term cash flow.  

I doubt he'll be able to quality for a loan (VA) with just his income. 

Costs will seem high relative to the loan amount on these smaller loans, $5-6k in lender fees isn't uncommon. 

There isnt any one magic "cheapest" loan - it will be highly specific to the deal.

And if it's a high amount, would you be better off just using that as a downpayment and get a standard new investment loan?

The FF rates in my zipcode are higher than I expected and their quality is less than what I'm bringing online! 

It was the tail end of high season and while I knew I could get a higher ADR on my own (I own the unit next door and know the market very well), I would have had to make some changes before listing it myself to do better and in this case, time was money.2.  

BiggerPockets also has a calculator to analyze deals, and I highly recommend you start this as soon as possible, even if you are not ready to buy.

There is a very high demand for S8 properties so filling it with someone is not a problem.