Are you suggesting that being crammed in a small hotel room represents a better experience than being in a comfortable homey Airbnb?

Hi Steve,Welcome to BP.There are several Meetups for Real Estate investors in Albuquerque.I suggest you go to Meetup.com and search.

I would suggest going as big as possible in the beginning. 

It was at the suggestion of my accountant that I hired the bookkeeper.

I like and appreciate both of your suggestions!

But the rental too does have to meet the "active conduct of a trade or business" threshold, which does mean you wouldn't qualify to use section 179 if you have a rental that is managed entirely by someone else and you aren't at least overseeing it and making decisions about the management of it.I mostly disagree with the reply suggesting that you need to have an LLC to take the section 179 deduction. 

Hey Michael,There are some great suggestions given in this post. 

The hard money lender didn’t suggest going straight into a long-term rental loan, but honestly, that’s on me for not digging deeper into the options before jumping in.

Any suggestions?

Normally, as @Jaycee Greene suggests, you make a management fee plus a split of cashflow with investors (oversimplified explanation).