You can look to hard money lenders who put more emphasis on the deal but will want you to have some skin in the game. 

Laminate counter tops are inexpensive and easy to replace in 4 years as long as the rents in the area don't all have solid surface counter tops. 

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Lenders want to see you have skin in the game and borrowed money for the down payment generally don't suffice making it challenging for they privater money loan to be sent directly to escrow on your behalf.

This sounds like a solid deal on the surface.

The crazy thing is, I've been doing Airbnb research and so many of them don't seem to be doing that well financially on the surface.  

I'll plan on redoing any flooring (prob to solid surface) when its empty.

Just gets under my skin.

Market appreciation looks sexy and sometimes it is when the market is hot but a lot of the time it's eyewash and not as good as it looks like on the surface.

If they’re like me and have rarely been discriminated against because of their name or their skin, then they probably just have no clue.