Whatever market you choose, be sure to nail down your buy box.

I think if you can nail that down you will be able to find a market easier.As a buy and hold investor some of the things that were important to me when deciding on a market were landlord tenant laws, price to rent ratio, housing demand, ability to build a team, large population 500K plus, multi-family availability and some other factors.take the process step by step and you will be fine. 

During this time, tenant complained of cross contamination, claims got nail in foot while in kitchen - all the same time accessing these areas to take pictures etc.

Probably this. california department of Real estate has already nailed two agents for raising rents above price gouging thresholds.. 10k fine plus who knows what kind of license discipline.

Ben nailed it.

There’s huge retal income potential if you nail that balance between improvements that wow tenants and improvements that merely look fancy but don’t justify higher rents.I’d also keep an eye on how your high end plan fits the local demand.

My 2 cents: You're young, you could get a real estate or real estate adjacent 9-5 so you can get paid to to learn more about real estate while learning and building the side hustle outside of business hours.Seems like you live in a major US market so that's a plus, you could get a tenant services coordinator job in commercial real estate making $40-60k (not sure if that's more or less than what you are making now) It's an Entry level role, anyone with a degree and a polished resume and a passion for real estate should have a decent shot at landing a job like this.

I think @Patrick Roberts hit the nail on its head.

Anyways, I think @Caleb Brown hit the nail on the head.

I think you nailed it- the market was reacting to the influx of jobs, which likely comes with transplants looking for housing.