No shortage of sunshine out there and since it's been 70-80 degrees where I am in Venice, it must be nice and toasty out there!

The lender will look at their assets though, so if they have a lot of money in the bank or mutual funds or those types of things they will want them to try to remedy the shortage themselves.

Problem is a shortage of cash on my part for the downpayment.

Since 2015 we’ve seen Number Sold remain significantly above Total Listed, suggesting this rise is due to a shortage of inventory.

I'm told that there's a housing shortage in NH and the overall statewide vacancy rate is less the 1%, and this place should rent easily. 

There are NO shortage of operators out there vying for capital for their "conservatively" underwritten deals.  

And I wouldn’t have enough for the down payment on the 600k multi family.So I’m taking a step back and pivoting.My city planning department truly encourages ADU’s and converting SFUs into duplexes due to the housing shortage in our area.  

A lot of people are looking to buy right now because of the low rates, but at the same time we have had a shortage of sellers.

A big one it a significant shortage of parking. 

Basically, as mentioned above by others, there are a lot of yellow flags for the following reasons:-The tenant may want you off their back so they can participate in illegal activity -The tenant may want to STR the property (not necessarily a bad thing--you can actually make more money this way by partnering with a tenant to do this--it's only bad if they are trying to do it without disclosing to you and obtaining your permission to do so)There a couple a reasons why someone may want to pay rent upfront with good intentions:-Perhaps they are a student who took out a loan for student housing (or their parents are footing the bill and wish to pay for the entire semester/year upfront)-With today's housing shortage, perhaps they have had so many issues competing for houses they want to remain competitive with other applicants in this market by using this negotiation tactic The way to protect yourself is to do exactly what you and others said: solid screening/background check and if it were me, I'd also ensure my tenants knew I'd be doing lots of (legal) checks on my property through the year.