Additionally, I'm banking on a future opportunity to refinance.After less than a year, here are a few tips from what I’ve learned:*Hire a local STR expert real estate agent to guide your investment location.

I've had a long career in community development and have a lot of bank contacts that would likely be interested in investing, but I'd need to prove the concept first with an initial fund (there are also a lot of other community development tools that could be leveraged to maximize and scale this).

I’d appreciate any guidance or tips to get started on the right path.

Quote from @Tod DuBois: Looks like everyone is using some software tools for various tasks, I'd not heard of most of them.

Tools like the BiggerPockets calculator and books like The House Hacking Strategy can guide you further.

All of the tools that you use to try to figure out if a potential tenant will be a "good" tenant revolves around trying to answer those 3 questions.

Are there any tools or strategies you swear by?

With the numerous investors on this forum they have done this to, it is probably just the tip of the iceberg. 

Thanks in advance for any tips or advice you can share :)

all materials, all labor costs to others, Not you, utilities, interest payments, permits, licenses, auto/truck expenses, tools needed are all deductable.