When taking applications, should I charge a fee to cover background, credit, and employment checks? 

It's not technically investing but it can help you increase your savings.

And tenants that pass muster - good credit scores, stable jobs, good income, no criminal background, no evictions, etc - generally are responsible pet owners.

The honest ones will always be honest, but there are a lot of "honest" people who are just very good liars and will phrase things in ways that are technically accurate but also do not address the intent of the question.

@Tom Gimer since I know you have a background in law, and Account Closed since I know you have defended a creative transaction of yours in court...To me this discussion of Morby method only sounds ok from the perspective of 'mechanics of a transaction'.

After completing the course, here is my honest feedback on the program: in short, it was not worth the investment.Just to give you a little background on my hubby and I (and without going into too much detail), we started our real estate endeavors in 2017.

If all 3 units are roughly the same value, then you are only getting 1/3 of the total potential benefit.There's a lot of technicalities I'm intentionally skipping here, to distill the core issue. 

If there are any interruptions or technical difficulties, tenants will likely contact you for help, adding more work for you.

Now that you have that background, here is where I need some guidance.

A little background info about myself, I currently work outside the U.S. for 9-10 months out of the year and live in California.