I am one of those investors that will take on these leads and allow you to observe when I meet with sellers. 

I have been listening to life styles on the radio for quite a while. one thing I observed is most of the tell Del stories, if not all of them were happened a few years back when deals were plenty and easy to find.

Visit the prospective tenant's residence to observe how well they are performing housekeeping duties; you can't expect them to do any better if they were to live in your unit.

No recommendations,  just observations over longer time frames.

Just a few 2 cents and basic observation:1.

In the past month, we have observed insurance rates increasing by 2x to 2.5x.

Drive around, observe, and take notes.

Disclaimer: I am not a CPA nor an expert, but just sharing my observation of your situation.

While there was a marginal uptick towards the end of the summer, it failed to reach the levels observed in previous years, highlighting a sustained scarcity of available properties.

Its just observational math but the math dont lie.