Investors can list their property on the same digital rental platforms with minimum stays of 30-60-90-180 days and due to the reduced management input and costs can often net a similar return with less wear and tear on the property and more flexibility on personal usage. 

If you are talking about 5% vs 4.5%, the costs to do the financing may not be worth it, but if it interest rates on the bad debt are double digits, it may be.

They are also in the process of a stock offering in the company itself.I've been investing in Grade C and D properties so far in order to get double digit returns.

There are many ways to source deals, and an agent will provide you several channels, but by no means an exhaustive pipeline.

There's a great YouTube channel Harborside Partners who puts out content solely for international RE investors.

I just happen to prefer double digit cash on cash.

@Lyle Perkins I've seen historically that rates out west for HMLs tend to be lower than in the midwest.We're seeing interest rates in the high single digits to low double digits for HML short-term products.I might expect rates somewhere 100-200 bps lower than that in SoCal.The Network --> Hard Money Lenders tab on BiggerPockets can be a good resource because you can filter by state.

We have a YouTube channel. 

. - Channel Manager: Guesty - allows you to list your STR on multiple platforms (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.) and manage it all from one place.

For podcasts I really like the House Hacking episodes on Bigger Pockets Podcast and other channels.