You can look at rural areas, but if you plan on utilizing property managers and taking out a loan to purchase it, make sure the cap rate and your budget afford you the actual cash flow you are aiming for. 

You have to decide for yourself what metrics you want to use to measure acceptable investment return and to determine when you want to stop acquiring properties, and begin just reducing the debt on what you own with your eventual goal free and clear ownership. 

While not military, I have many similar circumstances, including the constraints, as an investor.Right now I am aiming to continue educating myself, but I would like, ideally, to reach out to folks in Jacksonville, FL (and other FL areas), Alabama, and Tennessee to build teams and expand my investments. 

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but I'm just really starting to research this stuff and some things don't make sense to me...Ok, I've read in several places that multi family units are what many aim to buy.

If you measure the totality of your investment, mean cash flow, debt reduction, appreciation, rent growth etc you will always make more money in the areas of high demand like DC, Boston, Seattle etc than you will make in a pure cash flow market like you will in the mid west.There is always the possibility of your rate going higher, but thats the trade off of a lower rate with the arm.

What metric do you use to measure the class of the neighborhood? 

Certainly abating the friction surfaces are a prudent measure to minimize future costs.  

In the meantime we were aiming at renting something. 

If so, by what measure? 

Maybe some sort of a meter exists that can measure how much energy is being emitted to each zone.