However, driving rents higher will likely take a significant amount of cash to upgrade the units.  

I’ve isolated these three markets as they’re all within driving distance from my home and seem to fit my budget of $100K-$200K for purchase price.

It never occurred to me that I’d have to make the drive to this building for 2 months.

Geographically speaking anything you could drive to and from in a day would be a great start.

Not sure where you are, but might be worth the drive.

Typically lender will want to see first paycheck before you close.Maybe rent a room in a house hack (we have one coming up in Little Elm if you can make the drive) save some more money and buy a house. 

The plumber determined that the issue was caused by someone driving over the cleanout, breaking the pipe.

My recommendation would be different if you were a high-income earner or if you wanted steady equity growth.

for folks in So cal  I think Vegas is a great choice   1. you can drive there   keep in mind flying to other parts of the country to check on property is going to eat up 1 months rent if you go annually.2.

Driving relevant traffic to both a website and socials is hard without throwing some money behind it.