Best way to invest 200k cash for foreign nationals

[Hanbin Y.]

A little background of me: I'm in Atlanta with student visa. My income includes school stipends (starts in Sept 2016) and one rental property. The best loan I can find is 8.25% ARM3/1 30 years with 40% down. Right now my target area is 2 hours within Atlanta. My long term goal is a scalable buy-hold business. I thought about four options to invest 200k but would like to get some feedback on them.

1. All cash deals: 200k could buy 2 (maybe 3) B-grade properties (around 80-12k). Using 50% rule, NOI is around 1.2k from these two properties. But that's the end of it. It would be another few years before I save up for another downpayment (around 40-50k for a 100k property). Potentially I can cash out refinance all properties in a few year when appreciation helps. But that's speculation.

2. Financing: after analyzing 3-5 deals a day for past months, I find it difficult to have CoC>10% with the 8.25% interest and 40% down. I assume turnover every 2 year, $200/month for Cap Ex, $83/month for repair, and 8% management fee. It may be conservative but the loan is variable rate, so I need to leave some margin. Usually the "better" deals I saw cashflow around $200 with 40-50k initial investment, which is not really a good number.

3. BRRRR: one problem with this strategy is I am not allowed to actively work in RE business (immigration law) and I could only be a passive investor. I already have property management company and would therefore need a partner to supervise the rehab process. But for this kind of partnership, I am not sure what I can bring to the table. Time is limited as I have full-time school work. As for money, my total saving is only 20k/year. Not sure if it's enough. Plus I don't know what's a good way to split the profit as that 8.25% really eats in the cashflow. Maybe my knowledge will help out in the partnership? Anyway, I think this strategy could work after some hassles. Maybe you can share some suggestions.

4. Switch to a different location where 8.25% loan can still cashflow. And find boots on the ground in that location. This may be the only solution if the previous ones fail. 

Really appreciate it if you guys can help me out.