Vancouver and the surrounding markets are a different beast than most.

I live in paradise...beautiful beaches...soft white sand...historical buildings...forts...brick streets...festivals every weekend....Celtic...pirates...quaint restaurants...fried shrimp ...datil peppers...good schools...art galleries...as far as REI we are in a bubble though...houses are too high to buy and hold or flip...had to have bought a few years ago...

But there has to be a Plan B already in place for when the beast wakes up. 

@Crispin Wong the CA market is a different beast...I always recommend FHA, USDA or VA for newbies in combination with a multi family unit 2-4 house hack.

I put 0% down (beast mode) and got a $10K seller's concession and oh, I was the agent and got paid $11K in RE commissions. 

The power company can come out and add a dummy load (some call it the beast) to your meter and see if there are any issues.

Private student loans are probably a different beast.

I am really experienced and knowledgeable about managing long-term apartment units, but it's a totally different beast from STRs.One last thing to mention is that if you have a contractor who moves out and goes to another state, you're going to have a really hard time collecting any money from them if they trash your place. 

It is during the MOVING PHASE, that you must be cool, have all your wits about you and be prepared, yet still be cordial so as not to enraged the monster that seems to be lurking in your Tenant during the MOVING PHASE (as there is NO ANTIDOTE to calm the savage beast once it takes form).

ALWAYS do your due diligence before working with anyone in the business -- even if you find them here on BP.Of course, we do our best to give the boot to anyone that we learn is doing bad things, but due to the nature of the beast, we simply can't vet all our users or those companies that add themselves to our site.That said, I know many people who are successfully working with lenders listed in the directory.