So needless to say those have been red flags and I didn’t pursue those.

Brenda,If you're looking in Vancouver, just DM a criteria and I'll let you know if anything matches.Currently, the market is red hot and not a lot lasts longer than a week if priced right.

Purchase price: $236,500 Cash invested: $15,000 SIngle Family rental in Denver, with huge lot and favorable zoning What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

A lot of this can actually be answered by the zoning dept if you go talk with them (if they're doing in person yet...).

The long and short is that they were using comps from houses located in close proximity that are zoned to a different school district.

A LLC would protect you to an extent but also show as a red flag to landlords that they would not be able to collect as easily which could scare many off. 

With that being said how would I go about ensuring that the property I am looking at can be zoned/permitted correctly before actually purchasing the property?

I already reached out to the zoning department to obtain information. 

The math doesn't work for long-term rentals though for the same property.After initial research, my search was severely limited by city zoning prohibiting short-term rentals in many oceanfront areas but there are still some options left.I'm looking for opinions of skilled investors here about short-term rentals with Airbnb/VRBO.

Or at least red flags to stay away from?