Contact me if you'd like a lender recommendation.On top of the MACU loan, you can buy a STR as a second residence which only requires 10% down as well.  

You would contact an electrician plus the power company to separate electricity.

Contact me asap.

Contact the utility provider and get a historical average based on the last year of use.

I don’t know how easy it would be for you to contact every resident and ask that nobody use any water at a certain time for 10 minutes.

You'll need a contact who lives in Philadelphia for a rental license now to put down their contact info for the city.

Because you can assume no Section 8 tenant has good credit, my leasing decisions had more to do with meeting each tenant myself to get a gut feeling based on their communicativeness, timeliness to showing, what questions they asked, whether they looked me in the eyes or avoided eye contact, etc.The downside of section 8 was the annual, then bi-annual, inspections. 

I am sure the STR  platforms have probably been contacted by the authorities

Hi Andrae, the simplest and most risk-averse way to get started investing outside of your local area would be to contact TurnKey providers in the markets you are most interested.

Contact a real estate attorney in the county the property is in and have them do a property ownership search and lis pendens (lawsuit) check.