Investing in small SFH to rent as fully furnished/utilities paid

[Tim Hawkins]

Greetings,

This is my first post, so Hello to all! 

After finally getting my wife over her fears about this stuff, we are in the market for our first rental property. We are both nurses and are looking for a smaller SFH to rent out as fully furnished all with utilities paid, to travel nurses/professionals on furnishedfinder.com. We have some friends who have had very good luck using that rental model. In Billings right now, a viable property is on and off the market in a couple of days with 3-5 (or more) offers. I have no real idea yet as to how much over asking on avg they are going for, but asking prices have easily exceeded $100+k from 1.5-2 yrs ago. We are preapproved for a business loan up to $350k but want to stay in the mid to upper $200k range. We also have up to $220-230k equity on our primary home to borrow against for a down. At this point, this is a retirement diversification move for us to try and have some extra passive income when we retire in 13-15 yrs.

I guess the big magic crystal ball question I have is, how can I best assure (in an unsure market and world) that my offers aren't too high and I'm not overpaying for my local market, and won't wind up upsidedown in value? 

Also, I'm not super well educated on the different loan options (HELOC, normal equity loan, fixed vs variable rates, etc.,) Each one seems to offer certain benefits that others don't, but then those benefits are subsequently offset by the "downside" of each particular one. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm saying is, as a new investor and with the advice I've gotten already, I'm still not 100% sure which is the "best" way to move forward in financing this venture.

Any advice, suggestions, or education would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

Tim