. - some strategies I've seen California investors use to lessen negative cash flow: house hacking, mid-term rentals (people temporarily displaced from home renovation or insurance reasons like fire), rent by the room, Short Term Rentals. - The ultimate house hack, live in the small ADU unit and rent out the two levels of the main house on AirBnb in San Francisco (I would have thought STRs are oversaturated in S.F. but it worked for them and they stay fully booked).

People can't afford to buy so they continue renting (and stay longer!).

We do get people coming through for ETSU and Milligan graduations, temporary stays for the VA, and some tourism in the summer and fall but you're not going to stay heavily booked. 

Some hotels actually have a condo like structure, where people can own the units, but perhaps are limited on their personal use to only a certain amount of the year - the rest of the year it is in the rental pool managed by the hotel.If numerous room owners stopped paying their bills, you could get tax liens on numerous separately owned units.Hotels are a tough business, an issue I also see come up with them often is that they require refreshes, expensive and relatively often - at least once every 10 years, if not more often. 

Some people just are NOT cut out to be landlords.

As to the buddy I mentioned in Washington state it was the same scenario; he converted tax-free up to their standard deduction but above that he kept within the lowest tax bracket and paid the smallest amount of tax possible.Thank you @Basit Siddiqi for calling me out on this and giving me a chance to address my mistake; it's important people have the correct information.  

Having more people liable for the lease is usually positive in my experience.

Starting the pre-approval process and it's been easy so far, but I do like to hear from people who have used a company before.

Rare do I hear of recommendations but I do hear people asking.I would think in any big city you think about, a visit to a local NARPEM meeting or 2-3 visits would be a great idea. 

Wake up people!