The resources and books you mentioned, like the BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginners Guide and The Book On Rental Property Investing, sound like excellent starting points.Prioritizing financial stability and eliminating debt is crucial, and I agree that a solid financial foundation is key to successful investing.

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.

As other people mentioned the areas do change pretty quickly. 

In terms of property management, she mentioned that she has her own property management company.

You already mentioned Mid term, which can be a great way to increase cash flow.

My initial thoughts when it was mentioned, was to push him more to a standard multifamily investing strategy.

One thing I didn't see mentioned was what the value of the place is?

@Jamie Brayton would you mind sharing some of your contacts you mentioned?

As Andrew mentioned, you will have to be very price competitive to get January and February bookings.

He mentioned the distance to the nearest fires (about 20 miles), but the bank isn’t budging.