I wanted to see what the experienced and knowledgeable people here may have in mind for this situation. 

In my experience people ho have no skin in the game tend to care less about keeping the property up than those that have to work to have it.

It not a loophole, it's part of the tax code.I would ask your CPA this question, people not qualified to answer this could give you wrong info.

Also, hands-on experience is invaluable—start with a smaller property to get your feet wet.

I'd be really upset too, people are disappointing sometimes.

I've seen it price many people out who thought that in 2020 it was a terrible time to buy and now regret it immensely. 

Renting SFH is not as flashing as some other real estate, but its always steady and people always need a place to live. 

Yep community banks hands down.. for best rates etc. 

The one place that still imo offers a good combo of being nice, being affordable and having a little upside left imo is the eastern shore of Md, I just bought a flip down there (though it’s pretty hard if not impossible to find great value add even there) but it’s affordable, growing (a lot of people coming from dc, New York, Philly area.) but still not really a big enough market that any major operators are out there yet. 

As for some of the other things people have mentioned.