One thing that helped me was finding a realtor just as a guide to finding duplexes.

I also can’t use a FHA or any loan that requires me to stay in the unit for a year. 

My suggestion is to do your due diligence a bit more and understand all the #'s that go into the underwriting, and find a market that is known for cash flow, and then find an investor friendly agent in that market to help guide you further. 

Most of these cards don't show up on your personal credit report so your 700 plus fico score will stay that way. 

Or they could stay the way they are for a lot longer than expected and cause a lot of work and effort for no profit (which is a loss after considering all costs).

You do not need to have REPS, as long as the average stay is less than 7 days, and you materially participate in the running of the rental.

She is having other people stay there (against the lease),  do they automatically become trespassers at that point in which I can have them removed by calling the police?

There are also DSCR lenders that do not require a personal guarantee and again use the term delayed financing as their "program" under their Matrix/guide lines. 

He likes to find new things to do, create new processes for them, and then hand them off to his staff (like me) and then just stay involved to fix issues and improve over time.Handing your building off to a GOOD PMC may be similar.

That gives me a little bit of peace of mind in case my property stays vacant for a little bit while I get it ready, but I also don’t want my primary residence to be on the line for too long.