This is your best bet to enter the space as a 1st time investor with no experience, no capital, and poor credit.If you don't want to go the HH route and desire to have this be a pure investment play, then you will need a business partner / to Joint venture with someone willing to be on a loan with you so that you can use their credit and your combined assets for qualification.

The past 6 months has been tough because the COVID shot caused an inflammation to my sciatic nerve and I was out of work for 3 months and now I am back to normal. 

He is starting to make more and we recently filed taxes jointly for the first time, as he saw what a huge difference it made.

While sometimes used synomously, TDY as i recall is <30 continous days and TAD is >180 days (the Joint Travel Regs do change periodically). 

A better option would be joint venturing with a partner that will actively invest along side you.

We joint-ventured to fund the purchase and renovations.

An update from myself - we closed on another 8 unit in January with a joint-venture partnership. 

The deductions you are entitled to take do not depend on if you are a W-2 employee or a real estate professional.The only difference between a real estate professional and a non-real estate professional is the limitation of utilizing passive losses on your return.Furthermore, rental deductions as part of the business are separate from the decision to take itemize/standard deduction.Now if the properties are persona, you would need the items to be in excess of $24,000(if filing joint) for you to benefit from taking the itemized deduction.

There are a lot of Air Force and Naval personnel that live in that area due to the proximity to both the Charleston Joint AFB, the Naval Weapons Station and the Spawar facilities.

Believe there's a $500K limit for such NOLs for Married/Joint filers.