Berea is extremely difficult for renters to find low price points and they’ve pushed themselves deeper into Eastern KY while Lexington commuters come into southern Madison county and beyond as they did into Jessamine county.

Unfortunately, NY does not offer many local STR companies due to the regulations that make STR hosting difficult. 

As a heads up they have a reputation as being difficult to work with--especially with regard to trouble college kids might get into (bonfires, parties, trash etc.). 

Was it difficult collecting rent as a landlord, during 2-hour long gas lines? 

If the property is still primarily for personal use, it could be deemed a personal transaction, making it difficult to justify the associated deductions.

I'd strongly recommend against a single family home and only target properties with at least 2 units otherwise it'll be difficult to cashflow in this high interest rate environment unless you plan on using a large amount of liquidity in the purchase.

If times get financially difficult will people stop eating or will they stop going to the doctor (unless its an emergency)?

With you managing their properties for them, it gets more difficult to meet this test.  

I think that's one of the reasons that I didn't post very much on BIggerPockets, it's because I was just trying to keep my head above water.But now it's 2025 and things are stabilizing and I have a much more positive outlook on the future.Let me know if any of you had a couple of difficult years recently and how you were able to turn it around if you did.

The bigger point is that if you use Walmart, Lowes or some other big box paint the base colors can and do change which will make touch-up difficult.