As others have stated, your fit & finish goals should be guided by whether you plan to:1) Rent: tenants don't always take care of a property, so you want to use lower-grade materials and workmanship.2) Flip: higher quality on workmanship and materials is usually required.Regardless, you always want to "Maintain to the Neighborhood".

You want not only qualified tenants (credit score, income, background checks, etc.) but quality tenants.

One of the biggest challenges of investing in Rustbelt cities is knowing where to invest and properly understanding the cooresponding pros & cons.Here's copy & paste advice we share to help to address this challenge:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a Class A property in Class D area, what quality of tenant will you get?

Most standard MLS contracts now include a box check for 1031 exchanges. 

Set your standards up front.Raise the rent to the market max and the difference will cover the deposit in 12 months or so.

If so, how do you trust you're getting a quality tenant that is safe?

More freedom to tailor your investment to the guests' needs.More privacy for the guestsSecurity and keys can automatedMore rooms for more quality pictures!

Are their listings detailed with good-quality photos?

Unfortunately - there are a couple of issues here that likely make this hard to finance:-"Cabin style" dwellings typically are difficult to finance as the secondary capital markets treats these differently than standard single family homes as the buyer pool for a "cabin" dwelling is less than that of a standard home.- Yurts: Lenders typically have difficulty financing Yurts as they are moveable collateral.

The right idea is going to be the bread and butter.1) Ideal location2) Quality properties over quantity of properties3) 1.25x DSCR4) Intention to hold no less than 8, but ideally 12+ years.5) Sufficient cap reserves6) Mechanisms to enhance cash flow(via alt investing or house strategies).7) Liability protection through no PG loans(if possible), LLC formation, property management and being a diligent landlord.8) Invest deeper, before wider.Now if you're talking where to invest, different information.