Also, STR furniture may have a shorter life-span than stuff in a longer term rental.And then there are the zillions of things such as wine glasses, soap dispensers, accent rugs, pictures on walls, shower curtains, napkin holders, coffee makers, hangers, decorative items, and on and on and on..... and on.

Have the residents put a set amount into a common use pool, like $25  a month for TP, dish and hand soap, etc.5. 

It's interesting on BP we've got this whole group of knuckle heads who do all this ra ra crap about a person convincing someone to sell their $520k property for $200k but the same group of people get on their soap boxes when their property manager charges them a $200 lease renewal fee, lol.

Paper Towels (two rolls) ($2-$3 bucks)Toilet Paper (4 pack) (for when moving people forget the basics during a move)Hand Soap ($1.79 I think)Dish Soap ($2.00 or less Dawn)I spent maybe $60 on all of it max.

My biggest expenses are toilet paper and soap. 

I am a newbie here, Is Stockton (CA) still a good area to invest? 

Mr Clean Magic Erasers, Dawn, Murphy's Oils Soap (for wood,) CLR, and Turtle Wax go a long way.

Now with that being said if you were interested in cash flow you could easily take that 200-300k and invest into something with more units either here in CA still or buy something much larger in the midwest somewhere. 

A little move in basket with some of the following :  assorted felt furniture protectors for the wood floor, a sponge, cleaner for a glass top stove if there is one, a small bottle of hand soap,  a couple of packets of dishwasher detergent, maybe a dishtowel, and a roll of paper towels,  windex or such. 

Unrelated, they also used soap in our hot tub requiring extensive cleaning.