Many of these give sales pitches, gurus try to sell their products or mentoring programs, or someone tries to get you to invest in a REI Fund by a group of people pooling their money, for some REI and promising an unrealistic return.

If it is, I'm worried that my broker's approach is severely limiting the applicant pool. 

I never understood why Wholesaler get so much flack, syndicators for commerical deals pool money from investors and I know some who don't put any capital into the deal, just investors money, so what's the difference?

Those bookings are just handled directly with me.We are long distance owners and have a property manager there locally that meets the guests, handles maintenance issues, schedules cleaning, pool care and lawn care.

Austrilians were big on gross rental returns and that landed them squarely in the hoods of Detroit Memphis and Rochester.. with many getting wiped out completely... one needs to factor in all the numbers and costs along with the stability of the area and tenant pool.

Some people don't mind jumping in on the deep side of the pool in the beginning, others prefer to jump in on the shallow end.

I use both of those places but also purchase 10 percent off coupons and gift cards through Raise/Card Pool which helps reduce the overall cost.  

For comparison, my 1,711 sq ft 3B/2BA built around the same year with no pool would rent for approximately $1,500.

Good chance of appreciation.My only concern with this house in particular is that it is pretty far over median rent for the area, so I think your pool of tenants is going to be smaller.

Also, the units are no longer warrantable according to conventional mortgage guidelines limiting the pool of buyers if these units are owner-occupied.