Above all, a rental should become a rental because it makes financial sense as a rental, not because it just happens to be a house.

Maybe it's a MN thing and PA is different, but it makes perfect sense to me.

Prices there tend to be fairly high so make sure the financials make sense to you.If you're going the townhome route, make sure you fully understand the rules and regulations of that particular community.

You definitely raise a bunch of points that make a lot of sense.

I've got the common sense items such as clean the lint trap, report leaks ect.

You'll get a sense of time commitment to OOS investing and saving more for investments. 

Just depends on your risk tolerance with the fixed or variable rate preference and which makes more sense for cash flow. 

@Thomas Sheehanonly you can decide what makes sense for you financially, but I would not put $200-250K into a property to generate minimal cash flow. i look to minimize my outlays when I purchase.

However, if you analyze what we have vs. what other states have there are numerous reasons why we are a great state to invest in.I hope all of that makes sense but feel free to ask anything additional. 

Because interest rates are high right now it probably doesn’t make sense to pull extra cash just to stick it in a bank account.