He didn't do the job correctly.

A good way to forecast rental demand is to also look at economic data from FRED - population growth over the past few years, median housing income, job growth, crime rate, schools, ethnicity mix, etc.

It's your job as a landlord to pre-screen potential leads (gross income, credit score, evictions or not, etc) and then only schedule showings for those people that meet your screening standards.

Common benefits are:- Opening and scanning mail to email you a copy of what was inside- Shredding/disposing of unwanted mail- physically forwarding mail to another address (for a fee of course)- Depositing checks that they receive on your behalf.Just google "virtual mailbox dallas" and you'll see plenty of options for that market.

You can do a better job on the screening.

Buying a fixer seems unreasonable given I have a day job. 

There's a common misconception that they travel in groups and like to share a house.

Someone who works out of state with fire and government jobs but maintains permanent residency in home state with intent to return on taxes, license, etc.

You'll get a sense of it's "$5/sq ft for LVP flooring" or each window costs this much, exterior paint job is $6000, permits, etc Add up every little thing including light switches and electric outlets. 

It sucked to live in a job site for a year or two only to move out once it was nice, but that's a better return than index funds and money market accounts.