So when a major financial institute says your not financially stable enough for additional debt, YOU SHOULD LISTEN. 

Since you are buying a newer cabin you will not have to worry about this as much.My strategy is buying cabins in great locations that need major updates and completing the majority of the work myself.  

This protects you in the deal if the home appraisal is low or a home inspection finds major issues with the property.Have your finances in order with either a pre-approval letter or cash to buy the home.

I found the property, handled the majority of the closing process, and am going to be the property manager.

Some questions I’d ask and get asked often1.) like others mentioned, a major question I’d  ask is how many rentals they currently manage to see their current workload and see if they have the bandwidth to take on more properties.

Now if they got married, had kids, and a vast majority still lived in apartments that MAY have the makings of a trend.  

Have you ever overlooked a major item that needed replacing?

In some cases they may feel less bad about contacting a person vs a company.Also for self-fixes it depends on the condition of your place, but a major fix will need to be taken care of whether you self-manage or not.  

If you do have experience and connections to build then do it but majority of time buying an existing SFH works

I was raised and lived in Bloomfield majority of my life.