If your goal is financial independence, then selecting an investment city is a straightforward process due to the income requirements for financial independence.

So consider your banking offerings and then search for local banks that cater to that.

Tenants will set up insurance, show you proof, then cancel their policy right after moving in.

Everyone in this Industry at least who sells RE to Homeowners NOT investors knows the cycles and right now the cycle is MORE LISTINGS period nationwide.. then come about Nov.. people slow way down B/C of the holidays and in other markets winter is slow because weather is so snotty..

Quote from @Blake Winiecki: Figure out how much you want/need to earn, then reverse engineer it to see what options are available. 

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 property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

We are going to focus on small multi-family first, and then  get into large multi-family.

They are more useful IMO for getting chunks of equity right off the bat thru value add and then either realizing that equity by flipping it and using for a down payment on something bigger or hold a couple years and then sell at that point to do that then. 

I get nervous about it but then have to let my rational brain work and say, I own an out-of-state property and I own another property in LA.

If you do have enough other income then you dont even need to lease out this property to start your refinance.However if you dont have enough income to qualify with no rental income offset then yes you will need to obtain your lease(s) and security deposit + 1st months rents deposited before you can utilize 75% of this gross income - your monthly PITIA payment (in terms of qualification on this property refinance.So all in all Id make sure what your current debt to income position is first of all (DTI) and then strategize to see if you even need the leases at all.