People complain about booking.com cancellations.

I'm quite new as an investor, but with three books by Biggerpockets authors under my belt and plenty of enthusiasm, I'm ready to keep learning and to connect with like-minded people in my area and beyond.

With enough knowledge you can make a educated decision on which approach you take.My experience:I personally don't sign up for any program who take you aside during events and try to sell packages that is just blatant sales strategy.Once you sign up there is every attempt to make you sign for their programs for bookkeeping, registered agent, LLC or corp setup fee which have ridiculous even with platinum membership.Basic standard structure they suggest to take advantage of multiple deductions can be easily achieved by proper education or work with a good firm like https://wcginc.com  who is local to you.A umbrella C-crop to manage all other LLC properties and take advantage of many tax deductions that are not available with a llc, its also used to take losses up to 100K as startup expenses and dissolve the entity after few years.Few LLC entities for investing in Real Estate, etc preferably in Wyoming or Nevada ( you can find many companies online who can do this for $150 compared to anderson $1500-$3000) , they will claim they have a secret Operating agreement which is bogus.They certainly try to take advantage of tax loopholes and claim to be smart people, my view they are just taking advantage of numbers as per their own statements.

Also, do you have 2 people per room, or just one person? 

Most people who have crazy/complicated entity structures and financial account structures as a result don't need it.

Quote from @Theodore Sutton: Check out the site meetup.com and also the events page on BP for meetings up in your area to meet people like this and build relationships.

I can see how an application fee per person can be a deterrent for applicants in my case whether for more upscale rentals people may see it as more normal.I am starting off as a non-refundable fee and measure the resistance, then adjust if needed.

I have been in many properties where private pay people rented and trashed the place. 

In the end, people rely on internet for all sorts of things and you want that to be reliable.

Too many people try something for a short time and are looking for the magic bullet strategy but the true winners in real estate are those that do one thing a bunch of times over a long time periodHope that helps!