I'm based in Powder Springs, Ga.I've always heard about real estate passively but it always went over my head and seemed beyond my reach. 

For beach markets in SC and GA, you might want to check out Charleston or Hilton Head in SC, and Savannah or Tybee Island in GA.

It's a competitive market and most of the people that get in trouble here are ones that buy blindly without actually figuring out the numbers, etc.You'd be surprised the number of times I get asked after month one if their electric bill of $xxx or whatever is normal, and the thought running through my head is "how did you not  check things like that before you committed half a million dollars to something?"

Hey Tod, I took a very brief look at your first listing, airbnb.com/h/newport1bedroom, and the thing that jumps out at me as far as improving it is: address the 1-star review head on without attacking the reviewer.

The challenge with S8 in this scenario is you always have a piano over your head and all a tenant has to do is call the code office to create an issue for you. 

There are many STRs that do quite well in the suburbs of major cityies Off the top of my head, I can think of one of the STRs we manage that is 40 mins outside of Dallas and it has a great occupancy rate.

I’ve had many clients do a traditional 1031 and then they feel like they have a gun to their head with the shot clock.  

@John Underwood hit the nail on the head.

Cleaning up our work area, I remembered what my old co-worker once told me on the construction site "There are 3 ways a job gets done: One way in our head, another way planned out, and how the job actually goes." 

I am over my head.