The tenant base, on average, tends to be rougher on the properties, moves more frequently, and cannot absorb any rent increases.  

I recently sold one I had on Seabrook Island because the club/regime/HOA were frequently changing the rules and making it harder to operate smoothly.

Too bad you can't buy something owner-occupied, put 5% down with the best interest rate, live in it for 12 months (and fix it up), rent it out and repeat the cycle.Here's some other info you might find useful:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------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'm looking for updates but they do not come as frequently as I'd probably like - and it sounds like others as well. 

This doesn't come cheap--these folks were making high six to seven figures depending on volume.We focused on lending to professional real estate investors--so our customers were frequent repeat borrowers. 

Right now focused on Charlotte & Raleigh, NC, but also considering some of the advice above of sticking with markets I have friends/family in and travel to frequently. 

I don't know if I can sell my wife on moving into a fixer up but I assume the idea there is to repeat the process with the new house.

And rinse and repeat.

Many investors in syndications ask such basic questions: what's your track record, when do distributions start, and how frequently do you pay distributions.  

Obtaining the FHA loan is great and you could repeat the process after about a year with the right lender.