I wouldn't buy one from scratch if you don't have the experience. especially in miami where it's one of the most expensive places for land in the country. the areas you are talking about can exceed more than 20 million an acre depending on height allowances  

The cash-out refi necessarily means thousands of dollars in additional expenses - likely setting you back further than you went forward in mortgage pay down during the same time period if refinancing in 1-2 years - but hopefully earning more equity in the meantime (fingers crossed).  

But, overall, you will never know until you cross those lines. 

Want to stay in the middle of the country – not too far north or south.

You aren't ready based on what you said.NJ is one of the toughest flip market in the country now (Northern) because the prices to buy the dumps is high because inventory is low so the spread is too little for new flippers.

But when that comes to a reckoning, without doubt it will be something that changes the very landscape of the country and world. 

I like these amongst ,many other right nowREXR - (Rexford) they are a niche (sub-specialist) in industrial warehouse/distribution/manufacturing in the southern California only urban or Infil area, they are not international like PLD - prologis, their MOAT is that SO-Cal has geographic limitation to new inventory, so they have rent pricing power that industrial in rest of country doesn't, also 26 million people in so-Cal and the 2 busiest Ports in country, their earning/revenue projections next few years are best in class, and they are cheaper on price to book than PLD or others, I own some and will buy a lot more in upcoming Recession, likely in next 6-12 months, when publicly traded equities will likely slide by 20-30% although their assets (physical buildings) are only going up in valueVICI- (casino REIT), used to be part of Cesars palace, then Caesars spun them out in 2018, to do sale leasebacks of their properties to take all that physical capex off the books.

The only way to make housing less expensive is either increase everyone's income (not going to happen), build more housing or allow fewer people in the country (assuming populations are increasing-they are in Canada).I've increased rents, but I have 3 rentals in areas with caps on rent increases and all of them are far below market value because of rent caps and long term tenants. 

IMO Florida (especially Tampa Bay/Beaches) is one of the best returns on STR in the country. 

It introduces more steps and time to get that information, because you have to go directly from each listing agent, which is problematic is we're trying to work fast to submit an offer within a span of a few hours.The bigger hurdle for most of the country is getting buyers to sign an exclusive representation agreement to work with a buyer's agent.