It's a nice house with a big backyard that is mostly covered by my veggie garden.

There is low maint as there is usually no pool, bbq area, elevators, etc for these kind of properties.  

I gave the cat to my freind who lives 30 min away as they had a backyard.  

This means hiring another company to rehab and manage it, which means giving up some control, and that means a little more risk.Another option is to  pool your money with other investors into multiple properties.

I too am a MF investor with a pool of investors who I partner with on investments.

When I asked her permission to check out the back yard and garage, she said "OK, but watch the flowers."  

Even if your tenant pool is reduced by 50%, the discount is too good to pass up IMO.  

She explained this as, the homeless veteran pool does not commonly meet most landlord's tenant standards (credit, income of 3x rent, and no felonies), and here in Seattle the rent is so high that the HUD VASH (section 8 for veterans vouchers) does not come close to the cost to rent.

With fewer than 1200 inhabitants, if you get the property back that's a pretty small pool to draw a new buyer from.

People typically want to stay in a nicer or as nice of a place as their own home if they're going to use a vacation rental, and on top of that what is really a big drive is if a home has unique amenities that their home doesn't have, like a pool table, or a hot-tub or a pool, or maybe a theater room.