I held off till last April to jump into pricelabs.

Or paying off my debt, while I provide them with a nice house to live in instead of an apartment. 

Just remember though unless you have deep pockets you need to at a bare minimum stay cash flow neutral until you get the property running and your debt paid off.  

Your thesis is basically rent low and accept less desirable tenants so I don't think that is the best thesis to base an investment off.

Would you be better off just writing VRBO a check?

Sounds like you are off to a great start!

Spend a little more money than you might have been planning to, buy in a better area (i.e. not a “turn key” 100k house off the mls), and self manage.

Welcome to BP, I’m an agent here in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area and I work with a lot of investors on fix-and-flip projects, rental properties, and off-market deals.

I don't mean to come off as a conspiracy theorist - I'm not saying this is normal; I have no experience with foreclosures, just parlaying the message. 

But since i rarely held more than a year all the others got paid off quickly so I did not have to do all the hidden tricks to try to fool the bank or well not fool the bank or servicer but make it harder for them to figure out I was now the owner.