Normal mortgage rates are in the high 6's now, for a personal residence, and higher for an investment property. 

I agree with the others here that say you need to have some skin in the game, if you are going to live there yourself, get an FHA loan rather than owner financing, you can get a 3.5% down loan, personally I do not love these as they require  PMI which is an additional expense, and you also need  bring additional funds for closing at least for taxes, title, attorney and transfer fees . borrowing from anyone else for the down payment, to include a personal loan from the bank is not a good idea, those again will be higher int. rate.

With mortgage rates close to 7% and generally soft homebuying sentiment, strength in existing home sales is unlikely to be sustained," said Alice Zheng, an economist at Citigroup.

We've been able to rent properties pretty quickly, just as long as the rental rate is appropriate!

This is most of the depreciation you are taking year one.You can calculate your depreciation recapture by taking the sale price of the asset and subtracting the adjusted cost basis.The adjusted cost basis is what you paid for the asset plus any improvements you made along the way minus the depreciation you took along the way.The profit above this original cost is taxed as a capital gain, but the part linked to depreciation is taxed at a maximum rate of 25% under the unrecaptured gains of section 1250.To recap the tax rates are:- Sec. 1250 real property: 25%- Sec. 1245 property and 15 year 1250 property: Ordinary Tax RatesThere are ways to minimize depreciation recapture especially if you know how to work smart with your CPA.1) Asset Valuation at Time of Sale - Sellers can minimize recapture by reallocating the price of the assets on sale.

If you own this as a rental then there is not homestead exemption and you'll pay much higher tax rate than a resident/owner occupant in SC. 

Starting now, even while juggling school and your internship, will give you a huge head start.

Daniel,Memphis is a great market for investors and we have continually seen growth in both rental rates and property values. 

I've been looking at a lot of smaller towns around Cleveland, Ohio and have noticed there are a lot of seemingly decent cash flow properties, but more around the 1.5-1.8% rate.

It's no different than their 2-year, low interest rate teaser houses.