Few questions- to afford a $1M home you must have had good salary - who was the bread winner between you and your ex?

Sherman is more affordable but faces rising prices.

It would most likely come down to price and what you can afford. 

It doesn’t appear it was his intention to pay them back anytime soon.And in the example I gave about the overleveraged Subto that went bad, and the “Solution” was to sell to avoid a foreclosure on a Due on Sale, few if any of the Subto students can bring in $43,000 to closing, so it’s likely the property would go to foreclosure and the gator lender in 2nd position would lose most if not all of their money.

But I think the advice I'm hearing from @Julia Lyrberg and @Dave Foster and @trevor finn  is 1) that it might be smarter/lower risk to diversify and 2) that I really might not be able to afford to keep my primary house as a rental.

Never a one size fits all solution to an asset protection strategy.  

Wow I came her to see what people had to say about NOLA ... as it seemed affordable. 

This piece will also help you determine what you can afford and cash flow. 

I think my partner and I may be exploring a complicated solution - glad to hear that it sounds like one exists!

Ohio, across the board, is affordable, has good rental scale per price, and favors landlords.