Make sure you screen your tenants; a bad tenant will bust a lot of deals.

The first and best opportunity to do some basic screening comes with the selling agent.Having the seller pay everyone else for their expenses and commissions only makes sense if the seller intentionally defrauded everyone else.

Record a video of your screen, showing them exactly what to do, and they will pull as many as you want!

Since STRs are illegal in that area, by accepting them you'd be opening yourself up to fines from the local jurisdiction if they chose to crack down on STRs while you owned the property.  

That's has worked for me with ceiling fans, screen doors, and window blinds. 

My faience and I have been growing our list of rentals for several years we are up to 20 units now and counting...anyhow, we created a Cleaning list upon renting and require the tenants to acknowledge and sign it. and they will be charged Cleaning fees associated with each job  for not returning the apartment clean like they received it, we think this is not to much to ask and if they don't like the terms it also is handy in the screening process. we have had good luck with this policy and we have turned it into a profit center as well as great turn overs for the ones who do clean it.

Also the importance of screening your tenants properly.

I wanted to be preemptive and see if anyone would be willing to give advice on how experienced investors screen their tenants and what paperwork is used.

Beyond that we screen pretty heavily and don't really have a problem with theft.

A good example is Application fees- those were unheard of back in the day, now the are ubiquitous and a revenue stream for many. many tenant groups are fighting against application/screening fees and IMO these will be legislated against this coming year.