@Shanai RogersI agree completely with @Stephen J Davis that you need to protect your credit by paying all your bills on time.

But more experienced hosts who have the time and investment to protect often communicate with guests to find a bot more about them; like what they do, why are they coming, who are the members of their party. 

I'd be willing to write an offer on certain properties sight unseen if I can be sufficiently protected by an inspection contingency, but I have no way to know what its length needs to be.

What are you doing to prepare to protect yourself financially?

It is literally one piece of paper and a 1-line addendum, but the purpose of it is to protect your deposit.

My question is if something happens with a tenant and they decide to sue will my personal assets still be protected since the loan is on my personal record. 

All those immigrants who wanted to buy and are still renting will just continue to rent..

Then how do we protect ourselves and what does the due diligence process look like?

The recent eviction ban further reduces protection for landlords.When getting a new tenant, would you negotiate for additional terms to protect yourselves financially?

However, there were a number of "consumer protection" laws that eventually made this practice untenable.