'Individual Taxpayer Identification Number' (ITIN) for each owner of the property (Each person listed on the property deed).

Find out the average lease time for your market and for the person asking you to sign.

Same facts, except that John only has 3 days of personal use in the year. 

As someone who built a 200 plus portfolio of SFRs ( section 8) I can attest that for ME Personally.

I'm looking at condos that are part of hotels/resorts, for occasional personal use (I travel a lot and need a place to come back to), and to have STR income when I'm away.

I could talk about this for 10 minutes straight and it's a pretty personal decision with positives and negatives to each.

Quote from @Melissa Rivera: When a tenant is late, your policy should be that payments must be in full and with a money order or cashiers check.I would contact the tenant and tell them you will not accept or cash the personal check.

@Miguel Del Real if you are just starting out, and maybe you’ve never bought your own personal resident, it is risky to not have somebody in your corner.

Go to Etsy and search for "rental property tracker," and you will find hundreds of nice spreadsheets to track 10-20 rentals, usually for under $10.Software has extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button, and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

Personal assets/liabilities:Primary Residence: Have less than 20% equity in this, rest is owned by bank at high interest rate close to 7%.