Usually, I rent my rooms for long-term rentals with a minimum 6-month lease.

Another will fill it too high and then get hit will overage charges which the others have to pay.

What documents do they require, what credit scores do they allow, how do they verify previous rental history, etc.?

If the constant turn-over bothers you, but you like the idea of rental income - maybe the long term rental is the way to go.  

The monthly rental of a home should be 2% of the home purchase price. 

Have you confirmed you can use this loan on rentals?

Thanks to our rise in equity, last year I refi’d our house out (just rate and term-no cash out) into a conventional 30-year with the same 2.75% interest rate, so that my VA entitlement could be fully restored as we don’t plan to live here forever, and could then use it on our future primary residence, while keeping this one as a rental.

I listened to a few podcasts from Advanta on how to invest in tax liens in a self-directed IRA, however the management fees charged by Advanta are rather large compared to other retirement fund options...I also found a few audiobooks from the library and listened to them:Brian Mahoney - Tax Lien Certificates Property Investing.C.R.

Creating an LLC in NY is a hassle - all sorts of nonsense about publishing in newspapers for 6 weeks, etc.I tried to research what it would take to own and operate a rental property in NY with a different state LLC. 

The programs are created for investors who buy distressed homes, repairing them and then either selling them or holding them for rental income and flipping the hard money loan to a long term DSCR loan where the rents will underwrite the loan.Program availability vary by state.