This decision is too important to trust an online calculator; making a tax forecast is not rocket science on this but the gut punch because your basis is so low is understandable.    

@Andrea Evans I think:Worst Part - Lots of pitfalls you can fall into if you do not know what to look for like buying and property taxes double, suburb rental license, buying a property with violations, not understanding the importance of lease documents, etc...Best Part - There is so many opportunistic corners or niches in the city and suburbs that most out of state people do not know about and out of state investors never get to cause they get caught looking at cap rates on the south side and in south burbs. 

I’d love to chat with anybody like minded or meet up if you’re in the Spring/Woodlands area.Where I’m at currently I won’t be of much use as far as capital goes, but I am a grinder and would love to help any way I can. 

As far as rehabs - I sometimes use their contractor/maintenance for stuff near the end of the job that they can do much faster for me.

Idea 6: Wait until your market is so insanely hot and has low inventory like San Francisco, oh and a "Not In My Backyard" mentality...

I think the optimal strategy will be to find cities that have good returns, maybe not the highest, but that also have minimal regulatory risks.Nashville, Charleston & Asheville are great examples of cities that have some of the highest returns, but the regulatory risk is so high that it might not be your optimal city to invest. 

Tarrant county is so overlooked by landlord investors but it seems the list of large companies building large facilities with lots of employees on the Fort Worth side is never-ending.

Credit is so important in this business.I will be interested to see what others say in response to your question.  

As far as HOAs go, a strict HOA is probably a negative for an investment property.

Plus there is so much competition from tons of people trying to get into wholesaling, not to mention the big players already getting the lions share.