It is not the saturation from regular hosts.

You might be referring to income / expenses that are reflected by cash.Cash you receive from rentsExpenses that you pay out such as insurance, interest, taxes, etc.You may not have included depreciation expense which would bring your taxable income down further.It may be possible that the negative taxable income would bring your taxable income down.

i am not looking to be spending my days on the lake, I am looking to replace my day job income, and growing my portfolio.... but it is important to cover my costs first, which not 20k/mo but, that is what i'm accustomed to regularly (or more). 

STR's don't create real estate value they are a business  I have a dozen and am building 2 more this year so I like the business model and I have over 100 regular rentals.   

We have it set up where they can upload their proof on a regular basis right in their online tenant portal.

I assume 15% of the rent for regular repairs and capital expenses (roof, furnace, windows etc.) and 5 % of the rent for vacancies.

There are some vets to the site that also happen to be an agent or PM that are the exception, but it is just an interesting and expected observation.Do what you want, but if you can't go there regularly at first and then periodically after you own it, it's a bad idea.

Having people who know the market and can help you manage the project or property is crucial to project success, especially if you can't be there regularly to handle things that will come up.

We treat all of these properties the same as any other, so our down payment is the same for section 8 homes or regular cash paying tenants.

@Mohit Gupta  depending on number of occupants your regular insurance can cover it, read the policy, ours covers two roomers.