If the latter, I would consider putting your money to work in hands-off passive investments.

@Dennis GallagherIt's my understanding that the "Income-Expense Ratio" primarily use operating expenses as the expense variable, which includes costs like utilities, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, repairs, property management fees, and trash removal, all of which are considered when calculating a property's operating expense ratio (OER).You calculate OER by dividing the total operating expenses by the gross operating income of a property.

Would love to hear some first hand experiences with these options.

@Steven DeHart is in good hands!!

Total reno cost: $85K.The best part?

While running a large group of small landlords in Philly, i have visibility into the full realm of challenges that new investors face - and some are quite overwhelming and totally unexpected because they jumped in without fully understanding what they jumped into. 

Some of these might be too small for an STR, but the immersion blender, toaster, and hand mixer would work in most. 

I do not have loads of cash at hand, I have a few connections which I could potentially pool some cash together with.

I learned the most from doing deals the most than watching podcasts so totally agree.You should be able to find more agents if you click on the "agents" tab on BiggerPockets

But today with Dodd Frank this would be totally illegal to sell to homeowners without going through QM process.