Hi Anthony, it sounds like you’re in a good position to start building your STR portfolio, especially with no debt, great credit, and rent-free living!

of course the sale of hurricane damaged houses also confuses the issue (my house had no such damage but is only about 4 blocks from houses that did). 

While I wait for my work history, I want to build credit and save for a down payment.

My thought is along with others scaling and taking care of 20 plus set of books is a ton of work :)  so for those of us active in the business of course we would think we can just do this ourselves and of course we can The "passivity" is worth 50% of equity versus other forms of investments available in the market?

If your asset is older and/or smaller, you may have better luck with local community banks or credit unions.

I would say credit monitoring

from those I know the way they got going was to buy a 4 plex when it went up in value sell and buy an 8 when it went up sell buy a 16  then a 40 then 100 extra and you need no partners.. you grow it organically. however of course this is not pay 40k and your instantly an apartment owner..

. - I will ding their credit such that all credit cards and other debt will cost them more.- I will keep their security deposit for funds owed.- I will do my best to garnish future wages until their debt to me is paid in full.This has worked 100% time so far.  

Of course not, but required items such as electric, water, gas, and plumbing all need to be in working order.

Of course, if we have another available unit that's similar to the one they were looking at, I'll pivot to that and offer to move their current application over to that unit as long as they would still qualify under whatever the new unit's rent is.