I expect that things will pick back up after the holidays. - If you do not mind sharing the link to your listing, it would be helpful so I and others on the thread can give advice about how to spruce it up. - Do you have the unit cross-listed on Furnished Finder and another platform, like Airbnb? 

We are currently interview potential tenants and hope to have it rented by the end of January (given the holiday).

We are breaking over the holidays but will start strong next year in January.

Winter holidays slow the process down.

For my bank, I tell them when the payment should be delivered by, and they'll adjust the mailing date to make sure it's there by at least the prior business day (relative to weekends and holidays).

Relaxed atmosphere, just a group of Investor oriented real estate people meeting an talking. 

Build a place you would like to stay at and relax on vacation and you should do fine.

You could certainly make a plan to buy houses at 75% LTV until your DTI is too high for conforming loans, then pause and let your DTI come back down, or find non-conforming lenders with more relaxed DTI rules at the expense of paying higher interest rates.It's a matter of looking objectively at your budget and deciding how many worse case scenarios you can absorb.

It’d be great if we connected and discussed some goals/strategies over the holiday season.

Screen like you normally would.I relax income requirements since section 8 rent is paid in full or partially  by section 8.