Ultimately we've cut it out of our marketing budget.

As far a books on management go, check out Brandon Turner's book on managing properties which you can find here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/managing-properties-digital as well as the Landlord Survival Guide by Jeffrey Taylor

You can perhaps add the business as a cosigner if needed, but ultimately you want the family on the lease because they are living there and if the employee gets fired, they are the ones responsible for rent. it is irrelevant to you who the rent comes from. if it was a company renting so they can put up different contractors they have to fly in and different people will be living there at different times, that would be a different setup.

I found that , yes, I saved on taxes, but that maybe without the time pressure of those 45 days, I could have sat back and maybe found an awesome deal (instead of just a good one) , that would have ultimately created more profit for me than what I have saved on taxes. 

You 'can' make it work with condos, ... ultimately, it has to make sense for YOU and your needs and how you want your life to be.

@Patrick Britton I've considered it but ultimately I don't know how much time I will spend in Bellingham.

Ultimately, you don't know what you don't know and a broker can help eliminate some of those "I didn't know" moments that are eventual for a new agent.

Honestly i have no clue which angle he was ultimately trying to go at, but it sounded like he works with a lot of investors who own real estate that produce more deductions than they have in income to claim on taxes, the point he kept repeating was that you can calculate how much income on a property could maximize the usage of all your deductions, then either pay down to this point and maintain it, or refinance the property in a shorter mortgage to gain income and bring the level back up to this level every so many year or after paying it off. 

Ultimately the renters are paying all these fees it is built into your rental price.

The listing agent is not the ultimate decision maker, their client, the bank, is.