The biggest issue with Stessa is that it sounded like they had very low transfer maximums(making it difficult to pay people) but it looks like they've improved a little bit on that.

So unless you have 20 FTE AND $5M in revenue you are INCLUDED:Who is Excluded?

Those are probably the biggest questions someone needs to know to determine the feasibility of your ask.  

The biggest difference here is that you'll pay P+I on the entire loan amount immediately with a cash out, but you'll only pay interest on what you draw on the HELOC during your draw period.

I find the revenue to be more than enough so long as I maintain a certain portfolio size.I appreciate you sharing your though!

However, we are taking over from a PM to self-manage and are inheriting the current setup.Our biggest concern is that this first communication from the tenant was a sob story asking for $500 back/off rent.

Funding the larger properties to start sounds like it will be my biggest challenge and I'm not convinced, yet, that I can't find the money out of my own pocket or find OPM to get a deal done.

I think the biggest mistake that people make, is thinking that investing in STR´s is some totally different style of real estate. 

One of my first--and biggest to date-- blunders in real estate was working with a contractor that I deeply connected with. 

Thats not my model and homes at that price point havent penciled out for me but im very much doing BRRR in my market with properties that do pencil. we add ~50k-60k of equity per BRRR on properties around 200-230k ARV  You can definitely create equity in D.C. though the 200k listed above is highly unlikely, the biggest issue is at those price points you are deep in the red cash flow wise after refinancing.