The only thing propping them up and forcing them higher is our monetary system and governmental regulations that limit competition in the market place. 

If your property manager is not listed as an additional insured, they may not be covered under your policy in the event of an incident on your property, leaving both of you potentially exposed to liability.It can save you money.If your property manager is not added to your insurance policy as an additional insured, they may be forced to purchase their insurance policy to protect themselves.

For me, I am a little hesitant because I would be in a situation where I would be trying to secure traditional lending (which should be very feasible given credit scores & what $$ amount I am pre-approved up to from my banks), meaning that I assume I would be forced into using my first-time homebuyer loan incentives.

If you are very conservative purchase a fixer upper so you can force equity and hopefully have a low enough payment so that you can LTR the property or even sell for profit should the STR avenue not work. 

We can't find the next opportunity, have little economy of scale, so I'm forced to keep our reserves high.

@Joshua Lanzieri when renovating older properties there are almost always negative surprises.Go watch any HGTV renovation show and most of them will have this as a cliff-hanger, forcing the choice of either going over budget or cutting back elsewhere.10% overruns happen often, but 50% is NOT acceptable!

Jaedon, that’s a question I’ve seen stir up a lot of debate, especially these days when the cost of capital and property prices can feel like they’re arm-wrestling over who goes higher.

For C/C- neighborhoods you usually need to scale to 10+ doors; it's a numbers game. 

Be patient and don't force deals. 

Even if I use an attorney, I should still be armed with as much knowledge as possible.