@Robb AlmyHere is what struck me“In total, 224 investors who own short-term or long-term single-family, condo, or townhome rental properties completed the survey.

And figure out a place where someone could put a dresser at least one that's a tall boy type, although most renter type bedroom sets come with a long dresser with a mirror on top.

In general, what is the strategy for choosing rental terms in the current market?

I'd love to try the mid term rental strategy with the property we find.

I dont really see a disadvantage to investing in the self directed field other than it is not as easy to 'cash out' if you need the funds for something else, which is not always a bad things IF you are investing for the longer term, and that you can not leverage as highly as outside a plan.

It's the same everywhere.Just include in your offers a term that the seller pay your agent from their proceeds. 

What type of terms they looking for?

There is a genuine housing shortage of all kinds on the coast, long term rentals included.

My goal is to buy the house, terminate the section 8 lease as soon as possible (at the lease term, to avoid eviction process), and search myself for other better tenants.

If a single deal works out at this scale, the family has problems like estate tax transfer limits ($13M per child) to think through.Further, as long as the funds/deals are separate from one another, the one that does go well instantly makes the syndicator an "expert" in that specific strategy or market, which then attracts the next 500K social media followers.