The Japanese market is different in that it is a high yield cash flow market, non speculative investing.

If there are non-residential (e.g. retail, etc) we would love to learn

Or are all these tenants they've been placing non section 8 tenants?

Now it appears your cleaners might be cleaning non-STR properties also (home owners).

The narrative that these are cash flowing properties is aggressively pushed by everyone who benefits from these transactions...turn key operators....brokers....pm's but its incredibly difficult for the non hands on buyers to operate these homes for a sustainable period of time.

We can't risk a client sending an unlicensed or non-qualified contractor into the property as we share liability for that.  

We rotate locks through our rentals, with a period of non-use for each lock.  

They can also be more forgiving on condos (warrantable versus non) at times.

With current interest rates, and they are at least 1% higher with potentially additional points for non owner occupied property, it is hard to find properties that will allow for positive cash flow after paying the mortgage, if you are looking for money for the down payment from a private lender, those are normally at higher than market and I am not sure it would be possible to pay it off.... please remember you need to take into account that you may not have a tenant for a certain amount of time, a tenant may stop paying rent, or you will have a big ticket item to fix, so I would wait if I were you and save to have enough for the down payment and closing costs and perhaps some money set aside for repairs. you also want to make sure that you have your own emergency fund outside of the money needed for the investment property because life happens ....

Educate yourself, become expert, then make decisions from a place of expertise.