There are some great on-line real estate courses, and I have found the information within them has really been helpful for my investment business.

Think fix-and-flip properties or land development projects—things that don’t fit the cookie-cutter mold banks prefer.

Of course outright theft or dishonesty on the part of the sponsor or investment advisor is a completely different matter.  

For context, downtown Alexandria performs super well as a rental market and bringing in $5.5k+ as the monthly rental income if you choose to move out of the househack in the future will be absolutely feasible (depending on the property of course).

Of course!

I'd recommend interviewing multiple PM's and seeing which one fits your style and expectations.

Understanding your top priorities can help in determining whether Stessa, Baselane, or another tool might best fit your needs.If you're comfortable with apartments.co for rent collection but want higher yields on your cash (this is me reading between the lines) you could have the transfers go into a high yield business account like BlueVine 1.5% interest or something like CapitalOne 3.9%.

For STR, AirDNA is the most popular option of course, but the pricing model per city is rough (if it's still like that).

In other words, FB marketplace cast offs won't be the best fit unless you're lucky enough to come by some Pottery Barn or West Elm or brands like that. 

That is the best case scenario, of course sometimes you get lied to and stalled, that's why it is important to always emply a double strategy and stay a step ahead.