Hi Lina from Texas-Congratulations on your interest in investing in mid-term rentals and you are wondering how and where to get started.I get this question frequently from investors.Sometimes and investor is looking to keep their property cashflow positive as insurance and taxes have squeezed cashflow by turning units into mid-term or short-term rentals.First off, ideally, the property will cashflow as a long-term rental should something disrupt the mid-term rental model.You will also want to have the property be near where there would be a demand for mid-term rentals (hospitals, universities, research centers).Monthly rents for mid-term rentals are about 20% (+/-) higher than unfurnished similar long-term rentals.There are property managers that will manage mid-term rentals for you and I always advise my clients to use property managers to keep their investment as passive as possible and for compliance issues related to Fair Housing Laws and local regulations.To Your Success!

Additionally, your brother would inherit your cost basis for the gifted portion, potentially leading to higher capital gains taxes if he sells later.

There are quite a number of things that can make utilizing an FHA loan more difficult such as more barriers during appraisal, appearance of low qualification/little cash, typically longer closing period, likely higher interest rate, and PMI cannot be dropped without a refinance if 3.5% down.That said, just chain 5% down conventional loans, and make sure your duplexes pay for themselves.  

should I adjust the rent, considering I know the same floor plan could be higher?

Hey @Josh H. it's higher risk and def also higher reward.

However, I did forget about the "same value or higher property purchase" part of it.

Credit score- the higher the best. 760-780+ generally gets best pricing for investment property loans with most lenders.

In Italy your second house or even a duplex section the income is taxed higher.  

It is based on performing loans where the mortgage payment is not higher than $600 and they have shown at least 5 years of payment history and get this, they have no higher than a 50% LTV so the homeowners are very motivated to not walk away from all that equity.

To transition to multi-family properties, research landlord-friendly states like Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Indiana with favorable eviction laws, lower taxes, and higher rental demand.