People see those areas as stable and family-friendly, which can push up the value.Wider Buyer Pool: If you're targeting families, schools are huge.

This account includes ESCROW IMPOUNDS being collected for the payments of taxes and insurance bills as their occur.

Say rent's are $2k per month and your insurance, property tax, all that jazz is what, well under $1k per month, right.     

Make sure your contractor is licensed and insured and most importantly - qualified for the job. 

House needing flood insurance are hard to sell.

Personally I wouldn't do anything without good insurance on my properties.I will say that the insurance that VRBO and AirBNB provides isn't insurance.

I'd add up all of your costs including vacancy, repairs, maintenance, insurance, HOA fees (if applicable), etc before deciding.

My current issue though is that my mortgage and insurance have gone up to where it no longer seems like it would be valuable as a rental.

I can't help with that.Regarding insurance, you will need a STR policy.

The lower of the current rents and market rents are used to determine DSCR, but some lenders will go up to something like 120% of market. 3.DSCR is calculated with principal, interest, taxes, insurance and HOA (if applicable) vs rents.