Any travel nurse is a brother or sister in my field, so my plan is to make sure their housing is everything they could imagine in comfort and necessity be met.  

So I would definitely say getting into a property if you can comfortably do so is the best option.

So I suggest getting a ‘best guess’ figure based on several sources (Airdna, Rabbu, STR Insights - don’t rely on just one) and then build in some conservatism and see if you are still comfortable what your pro forma kicks out.

Get out of your comfort zone.

Get out of your comfort zone.

But you may be more comfortable with earthquakes, or tornados than hurricanes. 

After renting out the finished basement and one of the main units, we'd be paying a very comfortable amount for our part of the mortgage, and upon moveout we'd be breaking even with PITI + maintenance, capex, vacancy which is what we wanted to achieve.

Make yourself comfortable with both the contractor's ability and with their price.

Cool , good though to brain storm here as you get fabulous advice.. but next time see if you can JV locally and then will feel more comfortable

Get out of your comfort zone.