The average person should be able to read a law/code/statute and understand what actions are illegal for him/her to perform.

As a real estate agent in Florida I am not aware of any laws in place here that make it illegal to perform rental arbitrage on airbnbs.

The duplex I got using my VA is by far the best-performing one on a cash-on-cash return since I didn't have to put a downpayment. 

To me it was 100% accurate and about 90% a full discussion on the topic.  

Monitor and OptimizeEvaluate Performance: Regularly assess the performance of your investments against your goals.Adjust Strategies: Adapt your strategies based on market conditions and lessons learned from previous investments.9.

Owners mistakenly ASSUME all PMCs offer the exact SAME SERVICES and PERFORM those services EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, so price is the only differentiator.So, the first question they usually ask a PMC is about fees - instead of asking about services and HOW those services are executed.EXAMPLE: PMC states they will handle tenant screening – what does that specifically mean?

@Nick SansiveroRecommend exploring as many sources as possible to get referrals AND cross-reference them to get as much accurate information as possible.Check out NARPM.com, BP’s Property Manager Finder (BiggerPockets: The Real Estate Investing Social Network), etc.Also, encourage you to learn from the mistakes of others - by reading posts here on BiggerPockets about owners not having their expectations met by their current Property Management Company.

To keep expenses down I would like to perform some of the cosmetic work myself.

It won't be 100% accurate, but it will be close enough.

The best thing you can do is contact an real estate agent / broker who can run some comps and get you an accurate ARV range so you can forecast things more precisely and have a better idea of what these types of properties are actually worth and currently being sold for.