@Rene Hosman will be able to help you figure this out.

As someone who made a very healthy 6 figure W2 income for years, I only really appreciated the leverage power it held when I lost it due to a company reorg.

Just trying to figure out what city or town will be good to invest in planning to live there for a year and then invest in another property and so on.

I used Perplexity Pro to figure out some information for you. https://www.perplexity.ai/page/texas-denton-kyle-buda-eMQX8f...I am not sure if this is helpful, but thought I'd share. 

A friend of mine is trying to figure out what is a better long term strategy.

And, as with any industry, there are some bad actors that have given the profession a bad image.If you go into it, figure out how you can differentiate yourself.

You can also learn average costs for common repairs in your market to get a ballpark figure yourself.

My guess is these guys have no idea what they are doing, will dig about 30 feet and then drop off the face of the earth when they figure out they vastly underpriced the job, and especially will do so when you tell them you were thinking $250 was closer to the value 🤣

I need to figure out the trade-offs and plan for the longer term!

My motivation to sell was because I figured I had just purchased an investment in a bad area, and I was essentially doomed to make a profit/even break-even on it.