With your income and potential for growth, you're in a good spot to invest.

Austin was recently deemed one of the top "boomtowns" in the country based on a study by CoWorking Cafe ranking America's "boomtowns" based on population growth, GDP, employment rates, and other economic factorsFort Worth came in at No. 2 with 64 points, beating Austin in the report's ranking of top cities with a 500,000+ population.

1) rent growth.  

Economists:It is said that there are 4 phases of a real estate cycle: (1) RECESSION (supply greatly exceeds demand and high vacancy rate); (2) RECOVERY (rental growth remains stagnant with little signs of new construction but the economy feels like it is headed in right direction); (3) EXPANSION (job growth is strong and increased demand for housing. 

That’s not entirely accurate, as the cities surrounding Lexington benefit from its growth due to proximity.

Right now, I am thinking of turnkey out-of-state if the market continues at this pace because property taxes are so high in El Paso and rent growth has not increased with prices. 

You could just focus on maintenance, but that is only one of many tasks that a short term rental must manage.

Off the top of my head I can name 20+ tasks I know the costs of.

When faced with rising expenses, and let's be fair, skyrocketing expense growth, right, a business has 3 choices; (a) eat it and ride into bankruptcy. 

Learn the easy way then grow the portfolio to financial freedom :)