If the answer is to go on Lendingtree.com then fine but I'm just putting it out there to see if anyone has cost-effective, more efficient advice.Thanks.

The entity effectively incurs much additional costs (mainly the financing) with additional administrative burdens to maintain the corporate veil. 

If that LO could communicate well and give clear answers to their guidelines, etc, then they wouldn't be 'order takers' working on HELOCs, they'd be 'rain makers' doing mostly 30YF first position mortgages. 

Is there a different option that is cost effective and still achieve the same result as listing, tenant screening etc., A friend has suggested apartments.com.

Only way for them to communicate back to us was through the booking message stream.  

My prediction is even $4 gas has virtually no effect on anything regarding tourism.

May even have a negative effect. 

The correct, professional method of collecting information is to communicate with the Seller's Agent, not the Seller.You also have no right to contact the tenants prior to closing.

One rental should take you less than two hours a month dealing with billing and communication.

Understanding the rehab costs and how it will effect the calculations and THEN still putting in the offer(with the actual intent to purchase) is the hard part.