HEre is a guide to each city's requirements: https://azrtr.org/compliance/Overall AZ is pretty STR friendly, but of course you need to choose carefully as you already know.

@Mark Bascetta There are a number of competent tax professionals commenting on the forums here.

Investors must clearly understand the local real estate market, renovation costs, and potential resale value to succeed with this strategy.REITs StrategyReal Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are a type of investment that allows investors to purchase shares in a real estate portfolio managed by professionals.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Moreso than an MLS listing IMHO.So I would recommend you wait until the house is ready and then hire a professional photographer to take about 20-30 great pictures.It's worth the wait, you don't want to start your STR journey on the wrong foot.....

I bought a home in 1979 in EPA for 8k  it was a wreck of course and you took your life in your hands going there.. but man what a play that would have been to stack up on all those sub 30k homes back then :) 

Then of course, depending on where the site is. 

Of course, take a security deposit as well.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

At this point, I knew we were going to be screwed as the listing agent was for sure going to be showing his other scheduled showings the following day on MLK Day (even though he said he wasn't going to and gave us his word).Monday comes around, and of course, the listing agent says they jumped the gun on accepting the offer, and wanted to see what else they could get as an offer.