Lastly, keep an open line of communication with your manager so they feel comfortable bringing up concerns or bigger repairs.

Get out of your comfort zone.

It’s better to have less rooms and to have them large enough to comfortably fit a queen bed.

But what they are used to and comfortable with.  

It’s worth looking into now to get ahead of it, but also depends on your comfort level and goals.

I pushed back on the idea of an up front transaction fee of 10K and told him that I'd be happy to pay a transaction fee at closing, but wouldn't feel comfortable paying 10K without it being tied to an acquisition.

Get out of your comfort zone.

My wife not comfortable putting our house as equity, therefore we are utilizing other options to fund investment properties. 

Your income needs to be 100x it and you need to invest 10% of your net(so less than $5mil) annually in structured product type investing incl RE, let it season for 3-5 years, re-invest the first bit of profits and by year 8-10 you should be comfortable.$500k annual income is alot for your average folk, but it's not "retire me" income at all.

Are you suggesting that being crammed in a small hotel room represents a better experience than being in a comfortable homey Airbnb?