She has a co-signer willing to sign, but I'm hesitant with her age/safety (the garden unit has a steep staircase) and with rent being $1800 is that doable for her?

Maintenance on houses of this age is to be excepted and likely constant.

The age of our housing stock and the capex that comes with it should also not be ignored.

Point is, in about 10 years roughly 20mm houses will come to market as baby boomers age out.  

Hey Edward, "The only problem is I don’t know where to start but willing to dive right in with the right people"This is not a problem; it's actually great that you are going through this at a young age.

Find the age of every main component.

In the time frame that is covered by the article my market had the most stringent eviction moratorium in the country.  

@Kristine Lambert  I would find this odd if the son is older but if he is college age just could be just a difference in the definition of living with her. 

Equity and retirement assets wont do anything for DTI unless youre retirement age, have a plan in place to create income via IRA distributions, and have a sufficient balance for the distributions to continue for at least three years. 

It can come at the very end so that you're not wasting your time (and theirs), but the kind of long term damage that a bad tenant will cause to a property is not something that they can quickly and easily hide so you want to get eyes on how they are currently living.The age of the house has nothing to do with section 8.