Also, you are right about wanting to have a deposit from the tenant, so they have some skin in the game to take better care of your property.

Not only were the phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses better, I was getting a much more complete data set showing me DECEASED indicators and ages as well as the names and associates of relatives I could contact.    

You will have better data to make the decisions.

I later move it over to eXp Realty, and things went better there.

.), I've reformulated the base price to consider all these fees so that it better reflects the total price the guest is paying (independent of taxes).

I normally advise people to self manage for the first part of their journey if they can so that they can get a knowledge base to become better investors.At some point if you get to enough units self management is tough and its too costly to hire an employee so the numbers make sense hiring a property manager.To be blunt, you are going down a risky path for an investor.  

I have switched to needtoskip and am getting better results

And true operators versus marketers posing as operators often have better track records and, because the ones I know are more likely to only find a few deals per year, they have far more demand than supply for their deals.Either way, I appreciate your thoughts and insights.

I don't know the Smokies well enough to have an educated opinion, but my thought is it may be an even better idea than carts at the beach.

I would also continually watch the market in your target area to get a better feel for what is selling, what features are important, and how long houses are sitting on the market.