My lease does require and I reminded the tenant that the property needed to be thoroughly cleaned although professional cleaning is not required.

Finding someone that is trustworthy that will do all of that while you are living out of area, and providing money and the lot has value.

I have worked with a number of great CPAs over the years and would be more than happy to provide you with recommendations if you'd like?

What you are proposing is a very risky venture both legally and professionally speaking.

I understand that I should have a separate bank account from my personal checking/savings, but based on my research, this first deal won't necessarily provide cashflow with me living in one of the units (it will when I move out).

There are certainly some good people there, who are fun to talk with for the several hours of the meetup.When I attend professional networking events, they tend to be with others that are in the commercial level of experience.  

I would also encourage you to source leads through a software like TurboTenant which will streamline the process, in conjunction with the handouts found in Brandon's book, and likely provide a better applicant pool as your listing is automatically published to multiple rental listing sites.

Example: providing comp/s which are updated similarly to yours, but may be older sales or in a different neighborhood, and discussing why they should be used.

To provide some context, she initially approached our company to manage her HOA.

Investors use debt to get into assets that can provide cash flow and/or appreciation.