I've never been through this process and it's my biggest fear because it seems to be SO costly!

Dishes are the biggest conflict in almost all roommate situations.

My biggest two cents is no one should flip unless they are the best at estimating ARV in their room--better than the appraiser, agent, lender--when that happens, your deals will fall into line. 

To me the biggest issue with out of state investing and long term rentals is that you have to deal with property damages and/or evictions. 

I think one of the biggest risks you face with Cash Out is interest rate risk.It's really difficult to predict where interest rates will be in a 2-5 year time period, so it can also be challenging to model out future mortgage rates.

To get the biggest bang for the buck , I would go where the highest concentration of illegals live .

The biggest thing to me is buying in quality areas that will increase in value over time.

That’s the very simplified version but raising capital is always your biggest limiting factor so the more investors you can connect with the better. 

The biggest advantage of using someone local to where you're buying is that they will understand taxes, insurance, and similar items very well when it comes to DTI/DSCR calculations and payment quotes, and they will likely have a local network of service providers for ancillary services (survey, inspections, etc).

My biggest recommendation is to not get caught in analysis paralysis.