I immediately posted the home for $15,000 cash on facebook marketplace without doing anything whatsoever to the property and had 2 full price offers within 24 hours.

What initially attracted me to Cozy was the tenant screening, but the last application I had took several days for the background check, which is too long in our environment where landlords don't even call each other about past residencies and some will just rent to people sight/unseen without any screening whatsoever. 

@Evan PolaskiThe overall goal i have is to stop trading my time for money.

I love my job (I'm a software engineer) and have no plans to leave it, but if something happens to me (or my job) where I'm no longer able to trade my time for money then my life will likely change for the worse. 

The reality is that most new investors do self-manage and you could 'potentially' save money doing it but the other real reality is that most that do self-manage are not able to scale with any real impact and are only trading more expensive time for money - they just don't know it yet.

I also do not want to lever the total value of the properties above 50% (this will help immensely if there is another 2008 like downturn or any type downturn for that matter)(most conservative non-traded REITs like Blackstone use around 50% leverage as well) All 8 of our properties are very similar to this one example below.Using 5% Vacancy, 7% Repairs, 7% Capital Expenditures, 0% Management (self managed) in rental analysis calculator -Property A (paid cash) Year 1Purchase price: $80,000 Rent $1000/mo or $12,000 annualTotal Annual expenses $5,240Total Annual cash flow $6,760Cash on cash ROI $6,760/$80,000= 8.45%-Property A (Traditional 30 year fixed, 25% down, 5% rate, $2,500 closing costs) Year 1 Purchase price: $80,000 Rent $1000/mo or $12,000 annualTotal Annual expenses $9,105.12Total Annual cash flow $2,894.88Cash on cash ROI $2,894.88/$22,500= 12.87%-Property A (Alternative Lender 10 year, 25% down, 5% rate, $2,500 closing costs) Year 1 Purchase price: $80,000 Rent $1000/mo or $12,000 annualTotal Annual expenses $12,876.72Total Annual cash flow -$876.72Cash on cash ROI -$876.72/$22,500= -3.90%-The one alternative lender I found does not make sense as it creates a negative cash on cash return.

Once this place becomes a rental, we'll work with a CPA who specifically works with CA real-estate - I have no interest whatsoever in trying to do it myself, and would way rather factor the cost of a CPA into my profitability equation. 4.

Disagree with the previous two responses.OP should issue a 1099-INT to the lender if he paid $600 or more in interest to the lender in the ordinary course of a trade or business during the tax year. 

We will not use "handyman" services for any skilled trades anymore.

So, in scenario 2, you are trading 10 years of paying MI for $6k grant.