I have personally owned investment property (both long-term and short-term rentals) along the lakeshore.

Then I have still have to pay the person who was acting as a host even though no one came. 

The idea of debt-free is that if a person is going to retire and has to completely depend on the income, they don't want a severe recession surprising them and causing them to default on the debt and losing the properties.In a normal world, I would do that as well.

I personally ALWAYS use 30 days as the time frame to close in.

This is my personal opinion, which probably won't be popular.If you are worried about the cost of hiring an attorney to create a proper operating agreement for your LLC, you probably don't need an LLC, and if you choose to use an online site to create an LLC, you probably get the protection you paid for.

I personally used business credit cards to BRRRR a deal—no money came out of my pocket.

@Sarah Hadassah Negrón so you get a money judgment.Now you have to turn that into a garnishment action with the courts.To do that, you typcially need to have the tenant personally served - which means finding them or hiring a skip-tracer to do so.Then, what are you going to garnish?

Who gets blamed for and/or has to handle the following unique to nonfamily roommates:1) Missing personal possessions?

It has to be a personality trait.

.: I'd be tempted into doing an STR (maybe with a higher down payment to ensure cashflow, just run ROI numbers) or an apartment complex - I personally wouldn't mess w/ small stuff.