This is because Washington State has a lot of eviction protections for those kinds of organizations.My understanding is that if I defect on the loan, the lender would have a really hard time clearing out the house, and they don't want to shoulder the risk of having to deal with that.That makes sense, but two things don't make sense, and they haven't been able to coherently explain it to me:1) They say that this is only an issue because I am not operating the business.

I would say that your best bet would be to begin attending local Real Estate meet-ups, networking, and finding a partner who can shoulder some of the load for this first deal.As stated by @Brandon Turner more than a few times, it's better to have 50% of a great deal than 100% of nothing.

I shrug my shoulders and simply say "if that's how you want to think of it" and let it go.  

I think it’s about your readiness to shoulder the difficulties.

They didn't have any idea of the local market so we missed out on bookings because they priced our listing too high during the shoulder seasons.

Your head and shoulders above many other people getting started.

As for creating a buyers list, what I have been doing is this... 1) Ask realtor if she knows of any investors who are actively interested/seeking to buy properties. 2) Networking at local real estate clubs and seeing what you can find out from rubbing shoulders, and potentially finding a mentor/partner with connections.

This will determine how you proceed with your decisions on how you operate it.My personal goal for an area with a definite high season and longer shoulder season is to make sure I can cover my total annual expenses during the high season when I know I'll get the bookings.

Honestly the last 6 months of my life have been so crazy, not knowing when roommates are going to pay and then I had just gotten shoulder surgery so I wasn’t able to work full time and that really put me in a bind.

I joined BP because my husband got tired of me looking over his shoulder on his account