This is typically the slowest time of year for tenant placement, at least in our local market.

We typically make calls every couple of days to see if the utilities have been cut off.

What we typically do during this time of year on our owner occupied non performing loans is not perform any legal actions between thanksgiving and christmas. 

Just a case in point, the tiny apartment I live in (800 square feet) the mortgage payment is about 4000 per month, and the typical rent for such a place would probably be somewhere between 1500 to 2000 per month.

I am grateful that you shared this, because I do think a lot of these gurus, while generally having good intentions, are typically very naive and lack experience to truly teach anything.  

For example, if a property is clearly a rental, does that typically have a higher chance of success?

Despite being nearly 60,000 SF of land, strict adherence to the zoning code would only allow 7 homes because the parcels lacked street frontage despite being very deep.

There is a "sponsor exemption" but that only allows an unlicensed person to raise money but it cannot be more than 50% of their duties and the pay they receive cannot be based on how much they raised.If you have never raised $, a family office will be off the table as they typically want the company to ahve atleast $50-$100M in assets. 

"In a 2016 paper, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimated that full privatization of Fannie and Freddie would cost the typical American taking out a new mortgage $1,200 annually.

In that case I write off the lost rent as cost of doing business, but I prefer that to the expense and hassle of an eviction, which typically ends up costing us more and takes longer, even though Milwaukee is still pretty landlord-friendly.I have also done cash for keys, but typically very conditional.