Eamon,Any time you face a major issue with a bank/lender and they fail to refund your money or it costs you money and a lost deal due to ignorance or bad lending. 

You get your own dedicated customer service agent and she handles anything I need in a very fast response time.I have run into a couple issues in the buying/rehab process, but I will say REI has rectified the situation to my satisfaction every time and without major pushback. 

Hi River, Nothing major.

Even though majority of what I buy is non-performing, I just do not want to deal with it. 

@Chris Kay to learn to properly DIY manage you have two basic options:1) Trial & fire on your own, hopefully not making a major mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars.- Once your time is more impotant to you then the cost of a PMC, you can hire one.2) Hire a PMC to guide you on your first rental and learn from their expertise.- You can buy additional properties and DIY manage those, perhaps leaning on the PMC for any issues you're not sure how to handle on your own.Good luck:)

I will look through all of the major platforms (Furnished Finder, Airbnb, Zillow, etc.) and see how much furnished MTR units are going for.

You can learn the local market without the stress of a major rehab while you start building relationships with property managers and tenants.

Quote from @Michelle Fenn: Is it just my location or are a  great majority of rental listings on Facebook Scams.   

And given that, in a major city, there are hundreds of houses put on the market weekly, you need a method to efficiently screen properties to make sure they won't bleed money before you spend time analyzing, touring them ect. 

Depending on the construction, you have to do major upgrades on electric, plan for plumbing for apartments which may not be permitted in the area for the sewer or septic.