Is this a legitimate real estate investing strategy?

[Matthew Carlson]

Hey BP folks,

I've searched high and low to find an opinion on this buy-and-hold real estate investing strategy that my wife and I are employing and haven't come up with much.  I would love to hear some feedback on this strategy, especially tips on how to make it better (generally speaking).

Here's the basics of what we are doing:

• Buy a slightly beat-up 2-4 BR SFH ($80-150k) in a college town (where we live) that is biking distance from campus with a 5% down conventional loan (owner-occupied) via usual bank financing.
• Move in and live there for 12 months while fixing it up with the minor rehab costs being financed by Airbnb-ing/renting out the BRs we are not using.
• When 12 months is up, buy another house that meets that criteria and start the same strategy over again.
• Rent out the previous house to college kids or Airbnb it.
• Continue this every year for at least 5 years (though being fully bought into this approach for now, I'm sure my wife and I will tap out eventually and want a 'forever home').
• Never touch the cash flow from properties for personal use (which will already be a bit thin compared to other portfolios that use 20-30% DPs) - instead, use cash flow to pay down already owned properties (to free up space for more conventional loans) and/or (once we are in a 'forever home' after 5 years/houses or so) buy more houses at the higher investor down payment % rate (assuming we can afford it).

Some context as to why we use this strategy:

• Even at a low down payment like 5%, most real estate with the above criteria will cash flow a modest amount (rents are roughly 1% of purchase price before value adds).
• We don't have a ton of money to use to buy a big portfolio right away, but we are also not interested in retiring super early.  If we were financially independent in about 15-20 years (i.e., debt-free, $100k yearly investment income), that would meet our personal goals.
• My wife and I have semi-professional careers that we enjoy, and we aren't interested in being real estate investors full time.
• In addition to the money we put into real estate investing, we try to max out IRA/401k contributions to add some truly passive income to the mix. I'm not interested in only relying on real estate for retirement income (though plan for it to be the bulk of it).
• We have a one year old child (and plan to have one or two more) and, consequently, desire to have a 'lower-risk' approach to financing our daily lives (e.g., steady income, benefits, etc) until our children go to college (as opposed to trying to finance our lives mostly/entirely with real estate right away).
• We make roughly $100k combined and can afford a new 5% down payment each year (but not a new 25% DP yearly... unless daycare costs drastically change!).
• We are minimalists (don't have a lot of furniture or stuff to move) and are used to the 'move-out-every-summer' lifestyle (recent college grads).  We see houses just like any other physical possession and rarely get attached.  We can usually do the whole routine of 'move out, move in' in under a week while working our normal jobs for under $1k.

The closest idea that I can find is this: https://passiveincomemd.com/buy-one-property-a-year-and-retire-early/

(main distinction being that we live in these houses and pay a lower DP)

The specific questions that arise in my mind are as follows:

• Why don't other people do this? 
  (I literally haven't been able to find discussions of this strategy anywhere, but maybe I'm using the wrong keywords when I search)
  I can think of some main reasons:
  (a) This is a bad investment strategy for some reason that I'm unaware of (maybe I'm doing the numbers drastically wrong, underestimating the costs of moving into a new house in the same town, etc).  If so, I'd LOVE to hear why (and then would alter my approach).
  (b) People do not like the idea of having their real estate investing affect their personal life RE: having to move out every year into a new house (though I see this as similar to house hacking in the way that it is mixing personal and investment lives, thereby inconvenient in some way in the day-to-day).
  (c) Too slow for most peoples' tastes (though we don't mind it based on our personal goals).
• Are houses that are attractive to college kids the right market for this?  I've targeted college rentals because they usually meet the following criteria:
  (a) They are fairly cheap to purchase (not the ones right next to campus... but a few blocks away).
  (b) Easy to rent out afterwards.
  (c) Easy to Airbnb/rent while we live there.
  (d) Usually, the repairs are deferred-maintenance-related (in addition to easier value-adds like adding BRs) and can be completed by non-professionals (i.e., us and our informal subcontractors) slowly but surely over the course of a year.  Plus, college kids don't seem to mind our usually imperfect repair work. ;)
  (e) I work at a university and likely will for the rest of my life (though will move to a new university probably 2-3 times over the course of my career), so being a close distance to work is attractive.
  (f) My wife and I actually like college kids generally as a demographic. 
  All that being said... if there is a market that is better suited for this strategy, I'd love to hear about it!
• This seems like a slow-but-sure way to financial freedom... but am I missing something?  Obviously, we have to be diligent about running our numbers and ensuring that each house will cash flow a couple hundred dollars monthly after the mortgage, repairs, cap-ex, etc.  But am I missing something big-picture-related?  If not, why doesn't everyone do this?  Seems like a very easy and cheap way to attain independence from the 9to5.  
• Our pie-in-the-sky end goal is to - when we have 10 houses or so - leverage our way into an apartment complex (e.g., refi, 1031 exchange) to reduce overhead and generally step it up to the next level.  Who knows if we'll get there, but that's what we are aiming for.

Thanks in advance for comments/concerns/critiques!  

Best,

Matt

TL;DR: We buy and move into a new house every year (5% DP/conventional), renting out the previous house with a buy-and-hold strategy with a long-term horizon.  Thoughts?

EDITED: Mis-typed some info.

NOTE: My profile says "Athens, GA" but we live in Lincoln, NE now, which seems like a more affordable market.