I'm a 30 year old who lives in the small town of Bennington VT.

Look for town with prices around what you want to spend then talk to real estate agents and investors in those areas.  

Here in the ski towns of Colorado, most STRs are used by their owners. 

Long story short, sold my home on 40 acres and business, made a nice profit, met an amazing man who is a contractor, got married, sold his property too and we moved to the high desert of Central Oregon near a very popular year round resort town.

You could sneak into Morris Co maybe, but it would small and low on rents in towns like Dover or Netcong. 500k in Hudson, Bergen, and Essex Counties are rehab specific in most cases or hiding something.

His hint was that it is the responsibility of the contractor and PM to make sure it is secured as they knew I was not in town on a regular basis.  

River, I have bid on a few properties that would be great for short term but most of what I am looking at are for long term due to town restrictions and very good school districts.

If your tenant's caseworker is out of town for a few weeks, demand to work with someone else or do something to confirm you will get paid as the new owner.

I meant location as in location of the MTR ( whether its near hospitals, bus stop etc) and also the city or town it is in.

I would work on his rental properties when I wasn’t out of town building timber structures.