Focus on areas near public transportation, job centers, and underserved communities for promising opportunities.

If you need to evict a tenant and don't get paid for 6 months and in addition need to pay several thousand to repair the place to rent back out will you be able to handle that?

For my personal rentals, I use apartments.com's feature for this since it's relatively cheap (~$30, paid by the tenant) and it is pretty comprehensive.In my opinion, the credit check is extremely extremely important.

Only manage high luxury properties, they've done an excellent job with some Oregon Coast STR's. 

The new owner has lost his job and will relocate for a new one.

I'd probably need a mentor too.The second alternative you stated is indeed less intensive than a BRRRR given I have a full-time job that is highly travel-intensive.

I paid close attention to what the other companies did and innovated in the space to be more efficient and profitable than them. 

When you are looking to borrow the down payment that loan will likely not be paid back quickly.

The owner of that property did not have insurance because the they believed it was a waste of money if the house was paid off. 

So, if you have a full time job which is notionally 2000 hours a year, you'd have to being doing real estate for at least 2001 hours..This is pretty normal.