I literally have to cut and paste my ad (along with my pre-screening questions) into a response to these quasi-automated inquiries.   

@Josh Caldwell and @Jeanni Prescan i just settled a property this week where there was a holdback (an escrow ) set up to cover PA State Inheritance Tax liability, and I had another one two weeks ago, so I've had money taken from the proceeds on two settlements in two weeks going to Dept of Revenue for PA Inheritance Tax.We've also had hundreds of settlement, where the owner of the PA real estate lived in another state and "assumed"  that since they weren't PA residents that they didn't have to pay the Tax. 

I will also create an upfront operating account fund to cover any unexpected issues that occur before I build an adequately sized reserves account from the ongoing savings. 

I would suggest house hacking (buying a home with multiple units like a 3-plex) and getting the rent from the other two units to cover your own housing expenses.

I can not imagine a landlord who would not want to thoroughly screen anyone renting a house they own. 

She brought tremendous value by walking through the property and suggesting things to fix that would matter to prospective renters, as well as screening the calls and showing the property.

I would use whatever cash you can pull out to cover as much principal you can pay back on HELOC, but wouldn't go as far as paying off everything if you have to put significant amount of $ out of pocket. 

Make sure that you thoroughly screen your tenants in the future (i.e. pull a check on their credit, criminal, AND evictions history) and do landlord reference checks on everyone above 18 that will be living in the unit.

Usually, when you get under the 1.25 DCR, the lender would do cash flow sweeps to cover the loan. 

What crieteria is your PM using to screen the applicants?