Pay a vagrant to collect and store the crap for 1 year and then deliver it to them wrapped up as a present.Frank

That would instantly change my mindset from skepticism into excitement.

The other thing I have gotten a lot of good feedback on is being almost overly communicative, and always answering guest messages and offering to bring a handyman out, a cleaner out, or have a Walmart + order delivered THE SECOND there's an issue. 

I'm sure I'm missing some other options, but none come instantly to mind.

We, thankfully, had a friend of a friend connect us to a delivery person, who directly picked up flooring and delivered to us, then we worked with flooring company to get a credit back on price.Or, we did Ikea cabinets, which came with both more pieces than we ordered, and not all the pieces we ordered.  

The thing about flips is that they are ‘one trick ponies”… you only make money once - when you sell them - then you have to start over and find a new one, whereas rentals deliver their income month after month, year after year.We have done 6 flips and own 37 rentals.  

Instantly I can tell the hottest markets from the normal and cold ones, and separately determine which one's I am priced out of due to crazy high values.I'd suggest a similar value-based approach if you have the data to calculate on to identify a few markets to start looking for deals in, but remember this is still too broad of analysis to make a go/no-go decision on the projects you find.

The person I spoke with excited me about the possibilities; however, when it came time to deliver our XML file of properties, they quit responding, much like ShowMojo, making me think that they were not yet live.

You may find it less stressful to deliver a "no" indirectly through a PM. 

On a similar note, it seems like so many STR hosts, posting on this forum, do Instant Book and are otherwise very lenient with who they allow to rent their property and "never have any issues".