Building Deal Pipeline: How many markets are too many?

[Andrew Savage]

Hi all. First post here after lurking/networking behind the scenes for last 1+ years.

So here's the context of my question:

• My big ambitious goal is to have a property portfolio of $10,000/month in cash flow 4 years from now (I estimate that means control of ~40 units or acquiring 1 unit every 1.2 months or so)
• These would all be out of state buy & holds, where I'm obviously focussed on maximizing cash flow (SFH or MFH)
• I have a full time job that pays low 6 figures (so I have roughly ~20hrs/week to give to my investment goals) and no current rent/mortgage or other liabilities aside from feeding myself (I've done this intentionally for this 4 year sprint towards financial freedom).
• I have up to $50k to invest right now (and another $100k if I dip into 401k which I've contemplated doing), but as mentioned have a healthy savings rate given my circumstances
• My preferred route for now are properties that can be acquired at less than $150k per unit (so I've honed in on the usual suspects of states: WI, OH, IN, FL, MI etc) and from there I look for cities with more than 50,000 people that are either growing are have stable population, decent employment opportunities, relatively low crime, etc).
• I also have a bit of a desire to not go where I know everyone else has been circling for some time (Detroit, Cleveland/Akron, Dayton, etc)

So given all of this and my lofty goal of acquiring a property every 1.2 months (unless I'm thinking about this wrong), my question is this:

How many markets are too many to build and maintain a deal pipeline that helps me achieve this?

Ex: should I stick to 1 market of at least 250,000 people? Or would 5 markets of 50,000 people be an advisable alternative? Should I stick to 1 state? Is a total market focus of 250,000 people enough or should I be aiming for a cumulative group of markets representing 1 million people?

I'm sure theres no perfect formula to this, but in general I want to maximize the number of deals I can analyze that fit my criteria and make good offers on to satisfy the rate of property acquisition I'm aiming for over the next 4 years to achieve my big lofty goal of $10k in cash flow per month. 

Just wondering if people have thoughts on what's achievable before it's likely I'm stretching myself too thin. 

Appreciate any and all feedback!