My wife and I have loved real estate for a long time and invested in other areas, but are focused on building our portfolio in Kansas City.

A lot were doing air bnb up until the new rules came in place for the city of San Diego but you can still find a property outside the city that you can potentially do STR with to cash flow. 

You need to research/know the rules, laws and regulations (including HOA if applicable), like you'd do in any US city.

That is, buy one home in city X (where I don't live), live in it a couple of months let it be an STR the rest of the time and then the next year (or in two years) repeat again in the same city. 

I recently purchased a 1500 SF two-story rowhouse in New York with a building class designation of Two Family Dwellings - Brick (B1).

I have some good examples I can show you about Kansas City investments that indicate good returns on your exchange.

If you intend to continue 'helping' dogs, you need to move out of the city and to a rural area with acreage.

And given that, in a major city, there are hundreds of houses put on the market weekly, you need a method to efficiently screen properties to make sure they won't bleed money before you spend time analyzing, touring them ect. 

@Peter AlbertHi Peter, Canton city, to be clear, looks great for investing from afar.

Being a realtor, you already know the area, you know contractors and you know what's happening in the city.