They'll be much more candid about how things are doing and how things have been historically.

I am trying to keep a long term perspective and think about things like rising rents, historically low interest rates on the rise, total return, etc., but sometimes it’s hard to get past the imaginary little person on my shoulder saying, “Are you really going through all this and buying out-of-state rental properties for a measly $125/$200 per month?”

I enjoy analytics and was playing around with historic rent appreciations in the DFW area as of 2016-07.

HUD home built in 1900 in nice historic district of Ohio town. 

Especially with the historical district mandates.

San Diego historically has had a great ROI for buy and hold investors so I think it has been an easy market. clearly I think San Diego is a good to great RE market but I suggest you look up San Diego RE appreciation for any duration you desire and calculate the return assuming 25% down.  

For higher end finishing we've been in the $200-$250 per SF range on previous historic restoration projects when keeping the original structure & character of the property.

They claim a historical 6-10% ROI range but I've been over that the entire time.

I historically rented to young adults / early 20s, but I've always had a hard time because so much fluctuates with that demographic at that point in their life - people move in and out and it's stressful for those tenants who want to stay.

If I assumed 3% appreciation on my building (which I know the market has cycles and appreciation is no guarantee, hence were my risk tolerance comes in), it would be worth ~$450k in 22 years (same length left on my loans) @ 3% appreciation (what I have found as a conservative historical average).