ITs going to depend on a lot of factors but just jumping into STR "around the country" (i.e. potentially very far from yourself) is going to be challenging - property management fees are going to eat up a lot and its hard to cash flow as it is with current rates/prices.Most people would start with LTRs as its generally good for the "first investment" to be more of a learning experience and chalking up a lot of mistakes - so keeping $ amounts low, leverage conservative and the investment as "vanilla" as possible is generally good advice

I mad so many mistakes, that I was about to quit.

Anyone catch the other 10 - 15 mistakes that he said.

Otherwise, you have nothing to rely on in the worst case of going to court.

It's not impossible, but I think you're already making a mistake by deciding you don't want to work with experts.

Candidly I have made some mistakes, which I have treated as lessons.

They carry insurance for EXACTLY this sort of thing where their mistakes cost their clients.

Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.

Take into account the travel time, phone / video time, mistakes along with all the other economic factors.

What damage could it possibly cause that their security deposit wouldn't be able to handle, worst case scenario?