I know the obvious suggestion will be to acquire personal equity, but I wanted to know if any of you have successfully used creative ways to fund your first investment. 

Wish you the best of success, and I'm sure you, like many others will find it. 

You need to find another PM.Training the tenants - is the key to successful rental business.PM has to be strict with your tenants - this is the relationship business and something is wrong with their relationship, which is not good for your money.Late fees might not cover the delay in your payments (mortgage, taxes etc), and it's really not the best time of the year to start evictions, especially all of them.Sorry for all that mess :(I'd also check on the management company - they supposedo have separate trust account just for your rentals.

Account Closed, there are tons of sources for this.First, I would listen to BP Podcast # 229 with Zeona McIntyre (if you have not already), she speaks to her success with short term rentals, and discusses how she found her properties.Next, I know of two sources that I use for research:1. 

Have your complete one year modification period with successfully 12 month payments?

While I know some successful people in real estate that did not finish college, they regret it.

Account Closed I have many clients lend the money to successful RE investors like myself.

I owe a lot of my growth as a real estate agent and success as an investor to the BP Community!

I've had pretty good success lately with the Thumbtack or Nextdoor apps also.

However, here is what I have found to be true in my 40 + years of real estate investing, financing, and syndicating1- 95% of the "gurus" have never been successful doing what they pitch; they've created a program to entice the average Joe to part with money they don't have.