For example, should we focus on acquiring one high-quality property in a strong market, or would it make more sense to spread the investment across multiple lower-cost units in emerging areas?

Hey Rebecca, I'm a broker and investor up in Sacramento and manage about 100 investment properties (STR and LTR).Many of my clients are high W2 earners seeking "bonus depreciation" to offset tax liability by investing in STR.

@Patrick Drury what did you think of Propertyware and Rent Manager?

Ignore the $1,250 per month because that's your cost of housing, if you didn't pay that on the home you'd have paid that in rent so that's a non factor. 

Here you are basically hitting it without needing to manage a property in another location.

But even being a Landlord and outsourcing that staffing via Property Management still requires someone to manage the managers. 

Median incomes are an insane gap from cost of household/properties.

The total cost including construction and permits (but excluding the land) comes to about $2.14 million.

I imagine cost of labor might be a little bit cheaper in Idaho compared to Connecticut as we ended up paying 10k for gas furnace and 5k for AC with 10 yr warranty for Lennox product.  

Costs before that (during remodeling) are added to the basis.2.