I know a lot of investors don't like paying the fees, but on those early purchases, our agent saved us so much time and money and was an invaluable part of getting us off the ground.

If you say they are, you are just proving that it is hard to find consistency in CPAs.Actually you may be right because in my opinion  if the expenses (property manager fees, inspection cost for example) belong to 2017, so the income should even though the property manager still holds the money.As I always did all my accounting, I am doing as well the Malta part, and I think I know what to do.

Yes, there will always be an abusive party; wonder if they can be curbed (no pun intended) with deposit/monthly fees. 

You can research it yourself, there are companies that will do title searches for a subscription fee, or if you have a good relationship with a title company they may do prelim's for you but if you are sending them dozens of properties a week you better be giving them a lot of business.

Wouldn’t this be cheaper for you than hard money interest and up front points (those are fees just to get the loan)?

I track revenue, then back out ALL costs, OTA fees, Cleaning Fees (add back the difference if this is a profit center and average this cost), and any other fees if any.

You got HOA fees and your taxes are only at 4% ? 

Figure out how much they would have to raise the monthly fee to go from negative cash flow to positive cash flow and then to be safe I would double that amount and assume the Hoa fee will go up that month. 

I am managing it myself and have a handyman in town.The lease terms do not include lawn maintenance or snow removal, however my tenant does not want to do it herself.My handyman is willing to do it for an additional fee if I provide the snowblower and lawn mower. 

PLus usually fees are much less than hard money lenders and it s fixed rate for 30 years.