I went through this exercise recently and we opted to stick frame pole barn style with wood frame, roof trusses, shingle roof, vinyl siding. 

I recall my mother in tears sobbing as she stood in front of the TRASHED house with tenant... tenants refused to pay rent and trashed entire house and it was a very nice house in VERY nice upper scale neighborhood. 

Looking into ways to do this conservatively and one of the methods that really stood out to me was buying a MFH (2-4 units), paying it off, then taking the full rent + savings from our FT jobs and snowballing the same process over and over until our goals are reached. 

Poured foundations, not rock or brick/block, good lumber, stick built no truss systems of plywood and smaller stock.

Trusses are showing up Thursday.

We learned that Airbnb owners/managers are crushing it in just about every market in the US, but certain markets stood out to us that have strong travel and STR demand, are STR friendly, easy to travel in/out, and generally just places that we would like to own/manage and personally spend time in. 

Trusses verses rafters are a big difference as far as public perception is concerned.

We just started looking last month and have been to several open houses but nothing stood out to us yet.

have been doing some high level market research and Columbus Ohio stood out.

Ann Bellamy... you said something that stood out to me..."