When starting out, I think you should at least be able to get to your property several times within the first couple of years to en reasonable amousure everything is set up and functioning properly.

And you have to live in the same unit as the guest, bedroom doors cannot have outside locks, and you can host at most 2 guests at a time.

I would think most landlords, who choose to be landlords in very Tenant friendly San Francisco, would pony up the 5.2% knowing that the rate has gone up and down throughout time, unless they want to run the risk of their tenant's finding out and called out as being a bad landlord, being taken on by the very helpful San Francisco Tenants Union or taken to Small Claims Court.Maybe there is a silver lining in California's recent change in security deposits that limit it to one months rent when it used to be up to 2 month's rent for unfurnished units and up to 3x for furnished units.By the way, I took a look at your Company, https://www.getwhale.co/  Since your firm is only offering 4.2%, were you trying to market in San Fran before discovering the Rent Board rate?

Hi @Tyler Daly you might want to check out the RI Short Term Rental Association at ristra.org

This will help reduce your liability and will make things easier at tax time.  

I'm dealing with a tenant issue at the moment and, honestly, as an out of state investor, I prefer the option that will resolve issues most effectively.

The best thing you can do is to work with a realtor / property manager who's experienced doing Section 8 rentals and have good contacts over at CMHA to help you when issues inevitably come up.The process can sometimes take 2-3 months, but there are other programs like EDEN that can go a lot faster. 

With the lower LTVs offered by senior lenders these days, it may be tempting to look at preferred equity and it may make sense since technically it is cheaper than LP equity, but also keep in mind they have a higher liquidation preference (obviously) but will often want all the cashflow (or a majority of it) to come to them before the LP investors and will also want large reserves, so make sure you model out the cashflows and understand the end-to-end deal with the preferred equity investors.We have some institutional investors with whom we did a combination of a pref and JV deal and it worked quite well for everyone including them and the LP investors.

I would not reccomend them at all in you are in an area of with alot of moisture or rain.

I've personally lived in Kingsport and have years of residential construction experience and have several contacts in that area that operate At the top of their respected trades.