It reaffirms that by taking action, continuously learning, and being willing to adapt, investors can achieve their goals without the excessive financial burden of costly courses.Thank you for sharing your wisdom and encouraging fellow investors to take the leap and begin their own real estate journeys.

Then thoroughly dry it out and reassemble it. 

How do we protect ourselves from a tenant causing us significant damage in excess of the deposit amount? 

Although I do not have a house that would benefit from one of these compact units, we have replaced 3 out of 4 of our homes with the LG 5 cu. ft High efficiency top load no agitator washers & the 7.3 cu ft top load dryer and my cleaners absolutely love them for the large load capacity and the custom drying time ability. 

Both them and VRBO have about squeezed the turnip dry.

We only lightly sanded/roughed surface of cabinets after a thorough cleaning and time to dry, then we primed with a water base heavy duty primer (we used 1-2-3) and got Enamel Sherwin Williams paint (like $100+ gal). 

Address the leak immediately, once the house is water tight get everything dry and then you can approach the cosmetic repairs over time. 

@Michael Plaks has a great post on this topic.2 - Assess the value of those tax deductions to you: The value of a deduction depends on (a) whether you're actually able to use it to reduce taxable income and (b) your marginal tax rate.As an STR, assuming the average rental period is 7 days or less, key items to consider are: (a) material participation and (b) avoidance of "excessive" personal use.

Lower demand and excess of investment properties. 

Unfortunately these do cost more and tend to dry out in the can, causing waste.