Naturally my DTI is high, however my only debt is our primary residence mortgage I have had since 2020.

Due to the nature of the STR property criteria in Cape Coral, it's very rare that a STR could be converted to a successful LTR.

So you will naturally see more of those higher-priced homes in those markets.

A portion of rental income can be applied to your income if separate units (not for bedrooms in your unit) which could bump the value a little, but this will pose a challenge. 

After about 10 minutes of digging, we found out that this applicant was applying with fraudulent information.

Have you considered refinancing your STR to pull out cash to apply to a purchase in/around UTK?

No matter where you choose to invest, please keep in mind the following (copy & paste):--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a Class A property in Class D area, what quality of tenant will you get?

And they will be scrappy by nature and certainly don't have that kind of downpayment laying around.Second, obviously is price.

I'm also confused by the nature of your charity.

I am looking to buy a new property and am running into issues getting qualified for conventional loaning due to high DTI. I have a rental property which cash flows, however on my last tax return I had reported the reh...