A few suggestions to early investors: identify your weakness and learn.If you do not understand the finances and how everything interacts with one another, learn it. 

Section 8 is more a desirable thing in a weak rental market.

3) My thoughts these past few days have been that an annual PM inspection in Jan 2016, 2017 and 2018 could have remedied the issues above and the response from the PM is pretty weak. 

You have to recognize where your weak spots are to improve on them.

I know what my personal goals are, they are similar to yours, I know the numbers are my weakness and also THE most important part so I'm taking them on head on and this was the first step.

(Ex: Bad photos, weak descriptions, bad guest communication leading to poor reviews, etc.)So because of that, I would say choosing good management could be crucial to your receiving a high ROI.

You may have screwed up, but I would bet money that the HOA is not following their covenants to the letter, because it's hard to follow anything to the letter, and I would exploit that weakness. 

First you must be prepared to inforce it and second you must not show any compassion or weakness in regards to perusing your enforcement.Most landlords do not have the back bone to inforce this part of the lease and generally have a defeatist attitude toward collection results.

I'm not trying to be "nice" or "weak", I'm trying to be fair and reasonable.

The US Dept. of Justice seems to think real estate commissions are getting out of hand and though the rebates in their examples are very Weak, and consumers can save a lot more, they're trying to alert consumers of the savings that is available to themDepartment of Justice: Rebates Make Buying a Home Less Expensivehttp://www.justice.gov/atr/public/real_estate/rebates.htmlConsumers Can Save Thousands of Dollars in Commissions http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/real_estate/commission-table.html40 States that allow realtors to offer rebateshttp://www.justice.gov/atr/public/real_estate/rebates-details.htmlBesides the US Dept, of Justice, exactly what does the dear leader of Keller Williams have in store for the Mortgage Industry here in his Youtube videos?