In reality, the investor could actually live in the property, but instead they choose to excerise their permissable ability to sublease the property and profit from the spread during the lease term.  

This means building a reputation of honesty, reliability and consistency as well as having the ability to work well with others.

You will have to be confident in your ability to resell the place for them to accept a contingency, however, or else it is not worth it to them to tie the house as pending, when they could be marketing it for sale to another buyer who is buying it directly. 

Lock the thermostat so tenants do not have ability to change temp settings as well.

What I am looking for is the ability to review (hopefully in Excel) the prices, square footage, number of bedrooms, etc.  

Though the VA loan does limit your ability to flip homes or even conduct the BRRRR Strategy.  

It makes more sense to buy it myself and flip it but I don't have that kind of cash reserves or the ability to get a loan yet.

I have cash for the down payment, and I would enjoy the easy cash flow, but what should I expect for refi-ability if the appraisal value and rents don't change over the next 6 or 12 months?

Much safer. to do otherwise is to add an element of speculation that is not necessary. for 240K  I would expect to bring in 3200 to 3400 dollars in rent.

Currently, I'm invested as an individual.After reading about the ability to deduct business expenses before your income is taxed, it got me thinking about whether or not I should be forming an entity to invest through.