Cleveland will have a lower cost of entry and higher cashflow, Columbus a higher cost of entry but probably a good mix of cash flow and appreciation.

Your entry points are different if you are living there or not.

However The barrier to entry in the REI teaching business is very low and a lot of bad players join the game.What you describe led me to come up with Ned's Rule of Gurus.The quality of an REI course is inversely proportional to the price

There's really not a cost-effective solution for utility monitoring for SFR, other than Nest.WhatsApp for business communications is lmited - how do you scale and hire someone to handle, while being able to track what they do?

How do fellow landlords handle this situation?

Having the funds to handle evictions and turn units quickly is the key to stabilizing the property and protecting the investment.

But PadSplit does not handle maintenance and any member communications, our management covers that. 

State's differ quite a bit not just with their laws but with how certain aspects of a sale are customarily handled.

What makes it tough in the beginning is your rental income is not established so you need to be able to handle the debt not using rental income. 

How do you guys handle appliances in single family homes?