You are just throwing darts with your eyes closed, in a dark room, with the dart board moving around randomly while being blindfolded.So there should never be talk about "if you have a limited budget".

Then once they are done bungling the rehab, the property management companies will take the rest of your money trying to keep the place together for your randomly chosen tenant.Maybe it would work an hour or so away from you where you could at least appear to be local and to keep an eye on the rehab and take over if it goes too far off track.  

I am lucky, my tenants are either getting Social Security, have jobs that are classed as essential, or have jobs that are needed so much that they have been managing to work despite not actually being essential.

Look at the differences such as turning rental income into ordinary income you pay an extra 15% in Medicare and social security etc.

Looking up their Li and social media is a quick and easy tool.All the best.

Do you think that there is still room for using social media, and having a personal website to generate leads?

The people making requests all have: - NO profile pics- ALL are local from Philly- ALL profiles are minimally verified - All requests are for ~2 days on random dates this and next month- Almost no one has any reviews- No request really has a solid/detailed message stating their purpose for booking It almost feels like they are fake accounts compared to all the successful bookings I've had the entire time before the lock-down.

Tell him a random guy on the internet disagrees.

market it on social media.....and in fb groups.....create a facebook group with the name of your REIA.......put an event on eventbrite....

If you can keep a tenant or two within your social sphere you'll likely have an easier time than managing 4 strangers from Craigslist.