in my experience doing this in Vegas - the gross rental income is about 50% higher. 

With that said, I am in the position where I will not need a monthly income from my rentals.

Would it be smart to tack on another 203k in the future assuming my income covers payments?

-------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

I paid for the subscription for a few months and drew my own custom Google maps areas and color coded them red/yellow/green based on a "grade" I felt came from a few metrics like crime/average household income/etcI also really like realtors dot com new maps, if you search for an address and click on the map and then go to the top left and choose the Value slider it will give you a nice color coded map of which areas of a neighborhood are higher valued.

Do you have other ways to decrease your expenses or increase your income aside from real estate? 

If you pay two years' worth of property taxes in 2025 (January and December), both payments are deductible on your 2025 return, potentially reducing your taxable rental income significantly.

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

I ended up with 12 properties and 20k/mo in income after they were paid off.

It seems there’s a common misconception largely influenced by social media, online courses, and influencers who oversimplify the process that real estate is an easy, passive way to generate income with minimal effort.