After all was said and done I earmarked 3 x providers that suited my personal criteria.

Or after expenses are you putting everything that is left over in your business checking account and just keeping a ledger on the side with the funds earmarked?

@Matt Ward - Two main reasons I don’t want to invest out here. 1) The money I have earmarked for investing is nowhere near enough for a down payment on a traditional non-FHA loan out here, and 2) the prospect of a 10% dip in home value amounting to $80k+ rather than $10-20k is terrifying to me as a new investor.

Healthy cash reserves (which include money saved/earmarked for Capex) ensure you can hold onto your property and allow you to sleep better at night!  

It would actually expedite the process to have everything in one account, and properly earmarked, to prove that.

I also have another unit in a lower income neighborhood where the cash flow is high; for this one I have ear marked it as my "vacation fund."

Here is your support: https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2017/03/17/slideshow-mapping-the-top-property-owners-in-east.htmlWest Franklinton is spotty at best...it has the highest murder rate in the city...that's not good...there are only municipal public improvements planned...no earmarked developments outside of an art gallery and a nursing college.

Do you have a superior alternative investment earmarked? 

I haven't seen that movie however I can predict more taxes in the form of unseen or phantom taxes (you know the ones, you hear about them ONCE on the news and suddenly there they are and quickly forgotten) like the gasoline tax or the cigarette tax...perhaps now we will have the "bottled water tax" or the "federal *** emissions tax" (aka: the farmer's stock animal fart tax) or the "domestic house pet tax" on the pet food from the store.......because they sure as hell are not going to stop SPENDING our money or earmarking.....Soon taxpaying Americans will be storming the borders of Canada and Mexico just to stop the taxation madness of the next SEVERAL generations.

Earmark the tax revenue for public schools, police and fire departments.