@Jay Hinrichs brought up a great point about partnerships if you are low on initial investment capital.

short term rentals are not only vacation homes, nurses, workers, consultants, family, etc. all use short term rentals in traditionally non vacation marketsMaybe so, but a true vacation rental in a tourist area is going to do better than in an area where you best bet is to get a traveling nurse for a few months.  

Since I'm planning to owner-occupy, I initially thought a FHA or other small down payment mortgage would generate the best returns, and after reading a few forum threads it seems like that's what people usually recommend.

These are the remaining steps I have in order1.Initiate the quit claim paperwork and submit to county2.Set up a bank account (should it be done before the quit claim or it does not matter?)

Initial investments will be flips, but the group is also interested in getting into rentals in the future. 

You could also do a cash out refinance for the initial cash do the renovations and then do another cash out refinance after the renovations for the new ARV.In some cases investors do (2) cash out refinances - one to take enough for the renovations and then next for the new ARV and to pull out more cash for the next project at the higher ARV/LTV. 

The Discount: After the initial no call no show I wrote a pretty terrible review about them on google.

The thought initially was so we could get an FHA loan on one, as my wife and I do not want to move into a multifamily.

I’ve had it happen where the Bank was satisfied with having a lesser amount of phase 2 testing done than the environmental company initially proposed.

@Alex Appolonia I'm sure there are others here who have more detailed information on this, but in case no one responds, I can say this is an evolving area and your best bet is to contact the Narragansett and South Kingstown building officials.I know that in Narragansett regular rentals require an application/permit and it seems that short-term rentals do too but I can't seem to find the form for that on the town site and it may still be in-progress so I would recommend calling them.