We practice "safe real estate", so this is all possible but not necessarily what will occur.This is not exhaustive and does not constitute any fiduciary responsibility, it is merely one man's opinion on a public forum.

I grew up in Horseheads, south of you.It's 10 acres with a view of Keuka Lake, and from your description of how this has gone down, I'll bet it's Yates County.

I am not sure which market to look into as right now I am currently in new york and was told my best bet for cash flow would be to look oos for deals that I could use as a rental or house hack.

To arm you with a little more knowledge, the average 5-year rate of appreciation for Tampa is 9.2%, while the average 5-year rate of appreciation for Orlando is a little lower, at 8.56% That said, Orlando is a tourist hub, so my advice would be if you're looking for something short-term (AirBNB), finding a place in Orlando around the attractions could be the way to go, but if you're looking for a more long-term investment, Tampa may be your best bet.

Not my place to give financial advice, but as you mention, focus on the deal and do not make a bad bet to save on taxes...

Your safest bet in something like this would be to live in it, rehab it, then sell it/rent it out and do it again.

I'm looking for ready to assemble (RTA) that do not have any particle board or OSB.Found RTACabinets.com which seems interesting but I'd like to look at some in person if possible, maybe even LA County.Current quote from HD (Home Depot) for their ready made in inventory cabinets is $2600, those are particle board low grade cabinets.I'm going to bet Kevin Fox replies in this thread.

However there are also those tenants that I see are getting to raise their kids in a much safer/nicer neighborhood than if they didn't have it; and I have seen some people be able to move up in their career and their portion of rent get higher and higher, over the years, until they got off sec 8.

I think your best bet would be to go through your rolodex and ask them what they are looking for (asset type, specific returns, timeline, etc) and become a bird dog/wholesaler where you would sell the deals you find.

I like the purchase we made because the numbers work well for LTR as well as STR, so regardless of how things end up going with the STR business - we're in a pretty good spot.I'd advise others to do something similar, hedging bets just seems to put ourselves in the best spot possible when the economy is on the fence like it is now