There is a legal concept that when a contract is ambiguous that it will be interpreted in favor of the party that did NOT write the document.

I agree with @John Underwood & @Mike Grudzien, and I would expand on documenting *EVERYTHING*. 

If you want to email me, I can send you a document with the bullet points.

I have done a formal inspection with the lease but I give the tenant a checklist to fill out with the least when they move in so they can document anything that is broken or needs repair.

Getting less every month is still generally more cost effective than dealing with a tenant that stops paying or causes damages to the property.However, if you do decide to change your selection criteria and you are worried about fair housing, the main thing is documentation.

You just have to use custom documents. 

google All inclusive Deed of Trust state of CA.. that will give you a really good description and if you can find the actual deed of trust to read its a great wrap document .. in practice   you have a current 100K loan at 8%  you sell by owner and take a 125k note at 9%  the 125k wraps the 100k.. you continue to pay on the 100k the while the new owner is paying on the 125k  payment lets say on the 100k are 1k a month the new payment is 1.2k a month you make the 200.00 delta..

What documents are absolutely needed.

The HAP and related documents is from the state and very specific.

I would only hire out for major work I can't do myself or emergency repairs.I've dealt with older houses before and the house may be fine for occupants but there's still usually lots of things that can be fixed / improved so it seems a house that isn't perfect would give more opportunities for ongoing maintenance of this sort.To me it seems fairly straightforward to meet the time requirements but I think I need to have extensive documentation?