@Steven Wetherillwhat about property management?

Having a local trusted partner to manage your investment properties is key as well. 

I have five houses in Memphis area, and the biggest problem has been finding a good property management company. 

I've purchased a couple of my investment properties directly from property management clients who decided to sell. 

Their pro formas felt optimistic with providing 6% annual appreciation and property management that is only about 6% of rent so I take it with a grain of salt (they offer their own property management services but it has terrible reviews on Yelp so I would probably go with someone else). 

Heck it's so good I could manage a loss for a few months but I really think the cash on cash return will be 10% + first year and 20%+ 2nd year. 

I manage quite a few properties in those markets.

Section 8 and multifamily aren't for the faint of heart and can be challenging for novice investors both in managing and reselling.

The place where you can add value with no money is a situation like: you find project A, it is a 120k purchase and it should need 80k rehab but you can get rehab done for 65k cause you can do some of the work and you know how to save on materials and you can manage the rehab. 

I have hot tubs in the majority of my STR that I manage and always request my clients to get them.