The rent roll was so close to 1% of list price (which in my opinion is too high to start with) that I was instantly interested. 

That would instantly change my mindset from skepticism into excitement.

I'm sure I'm missing some other options, but none come instantly to mind.

The annual returns for example are an instant red flag.

Instantly I can tell the hottest markets from the normal and cold ones, and separately determine which one's I am priced out of due to crazy high values.I'd suggest a similar value-based approach if you have the data to calculate on to identify a few markets to start looking for deals in, but remember this is still too broad of analysis to make a go/no-go decision on the projects you find.

On a similar note, it seems like so many STR hosts, posting on this forum, do Instant Book and are otherwise very lenient with who they allow to rent their property and "never have any issues". 

In both cases this option worked well to guarantee us our payday without having to jump through hoops on transactional funding. 

I'm getting my finances in order now so I can buy the house that I've been renting from my in laws and will have instant equity.

We just did this as a seller on some of my new builds.. we sold 3 in the last few week and I negotiated commission on all of them.. a little different for us here in Oregon as these are new builds and folks ask for upgrades.. so like on one I said sure we will upgrade to Hardwood throughout but we are not paying a broker fee to your agent you will need to pay them.. well they passed on the hardwood and we agreed to pay their broker 1%. thats how it worked out.. in the higher priced markets its going to put buyers agents on the spot. because if sellers say we will pay 10k which is about 1% and buyers agents are used to getting double that they will have a hard time talking to their buyer who still thinks 10k is a big pay day and wont understand why the agent thinks they are getting shorted.. 

Instant water heaters take up less space and come in electric or gas versions.