Partnering with well capitalized builders will help as well because they can maneuver through a job without solely being reliant on your draws.

And the manager is not financially aligned (and in my opinion, doesn’t do as good a job of screening tenants, etc., as I can).

Nine month into my low paying job in a new city, I had no savings.

As you'd expect these giys are super busy an d you can't get a quote frpm them to save your life unless you said the magic words;  "I'm desparate and will pay 2x the actual costs today for you to take this job".   

Quote from @Jackie Liu: I think you're doing a great job! 

Reading up on local job growth or population trends can also give you a good idea of how the market is doing.

Living in the mountains of North Carolina has been a dream.

And you learned that in college, which cost you $50,000 - $100,000 which helped you get a job making $50,000 to $100,000 a year after 4 years.  

They’re great and have about 50 employees... plenty of fire power to handle multiple jobs

Because September jobs growth was a lot stronger, and September inflation (CPI) was a bit hotter than expected.CPI came in a bit hot.