Anyone can live anywhere they want if they have the money, and sometimes houses are bought and then rented out without much background checking on the people moving in.

Good for you for checking though. 

Make sure the lender you choose has a strong background in this type of lending...check them out on Linked In to see their experience level.

It's likely a scam anytime they sound like AI or the grammar is weird or they use the word "kindly", if they ask for you to respond to them off-platform, if they say their employer will pay for it, if they ask if the dates they've specified are still open (when they can clearly see they are open on your calendar), if they ask for a video of your property (they probably want to set up a duplicate listing with your photos and video and scam others out of money), or if they want a long term booking and they have just joined the platform and have no reviews (could have been evicted from somewhere else, and hope a newbie will let them in with no background check, they'll end up not paying or credit card is bad).  

Lots of posts on different companies so be sure to check out what people have said about vendors you are considering doing business with.

For cash flow, I'd recommend checking out the Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point) or Fayetteville in NC and Sumter and Florence in SC. 

You could check out a book by Dave Van Horn called Real Estate Note Investing.

Buying Wayfair through Minoan- I won't receive that data/info for days!

We want our rent check every month. 

Don't worry about minor complaints, you are doing a fine job.Just one question, ALL sites have a delay in data from MLS updates, and from court reported information, and so on, is that a function of a monthly update routine or can the information be updated a little more frequently?