On the other hand, we are 90 minutes from Chicago, which is nice if you have the big city itch on Saturday night.

Hi Kris,  I would be happy to drive you around Indianapolis and show you the transitioning neighborhoods when you come to visit. 

Nice looking house, congratulations @Megan Little-Moran ! 

We chose these properties for cash flow opportunity and because they work nicely for house hacking because the unit you are occupying is a percentage of a smaller mortgage payment.  

Nice people but glad Im not in Nebraska any longer! 

Fences, basic landscaping, tree removal can put some nice padding into your margins as well. 

Some of my Scottsdale connections who specialize in land deals have been whispering about how a few smaller outfits in Casper.. from what I’ve heard, outfits tucked behind older storefronts, have been matching buyers with off-market parcels that never even hit the usual channels.If you line up your financing carefully (no legal or tax advice here, just speaking from experience), you can sometimes lock in a deal that ages nicely over tthe years.

For context, here's the home https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/943-34th-St-Oakland-CA-94...We bought it as our primary in 2014 for $590k and realized a nice run up in appreciation over the last decade, appraising most recently in 2022 for $1.2m. 

either where you live, or a couple hours from where you live, or where you have family, or where you like to visit, or where you went to college, or whatevera lot of times choosing a market based solely on ratios or numbers goes poorlyhope this helps

And the one time we did get sued by a tenant the LLC never  came into play (slip and fall on ice that the tenant won a nice settlement on from our insurance company, insurance company handled it all).