The cost associated with insurance for not having 20% is peanuts compared to what you potentially can do leveraging your down payment. 

It also helps to show them the amount of interest they can get when they add up 30 years of payments (compared to the sales price). 

Over time, I’ve accumulated more cash reserves and don’t need as much flexibility, but I’m actually in the middle of a refinance right now using an interest-only mortgage—because the pricing with the lender and the corresponding ARM is more favorable than a comparable principal-and-interest loan.The key with these alternative or "exotic" mortgage types is that you need to be financially savvy and have a solid plan.

In addition to this, I've had 2 clients this past year tell me they used Airdna in '22 and '23 to see projected and estimated income and was drastically different than actual income made with very comparable properties. 

Compare my bottom line to those who claim it's fine to invest where you get a $100 a month cash flow and sometimes actually even get rent. ;-) IMHO Thank you so much for your insight.

You want to focus on areas where you have a competitive advantage (you have lived there or you have family and friends there) and then compare those areas against widespread list of great areas to invest.Good luck!

Understand the fees involved and calculate the total cost for an entire year of management so you can compare the different managers.

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.

You will quickly see how you compare in all those categories.

Findlay is a real oppotunity beause you’ve got a combination of stable job sources, a decent population size, and often lower acquisition costs compared to bigger metros.About choosing an agent..