So you may be in the same boat when I first started last December, What I wanted to do is the same thing you wanted, I am 25 closed on my first property in June, my second in July and I bought them both near colleges, so pretty much acts like a mini multi family renting our private rooms with shared common area, check out that style of investing if you can.

We decided to bite the bullet and have a mini split system installed in the main living area and both bedrooms.

It's kinda like a mini-website.

Then we visited the location multiple times (mini vacations - ie: long weekends), and used friends of friends to get an introduction to a realtor, who helped with a lot of the boots on the ground stuff.

Mini Splits are probably the best solution for your area.

@Robyn Gersh You probably have friends or people that you know that would like to use their IRAs to lend money on a property — Secure the loan with the property and have a known return basically turning their IRA into a mini bank.

Added mini-split A/C What was the outcome?

Can refi an existing mortgage to a shorter term “Mini Mortgage.”

(Still learning every day and sometimes have mini melt downs rethinking my whole real estate journey ;-).  

@Raleigh Mendez Yes, let's have a mini meetup!