Have a close watch on weeds, and keep local farmers motivated to maintain land fertility and accelerate plant growth rate

If you're willing and able, I do recommend the "house hacking" strategy which is just a fancy name for buying a rental property and living in one of the units, because you'll get very favorable financing - an owner-occupied fixed-rate 30-year mortgage.I'd also say, analyze that property as if you won't live there and it's a pure rental, and make sure the property is still cash flow positive if there's a tenant in your unit because then you'll know if it's actually a good investment.And when you analyze it, include payment of a property manager in your #s because if you don't, and doing so would make it go cash flow negative, then you've just bought yourself a job because you literally can't step away from managing it without losing money.

This would imply AA has an effective tax rate of ~3.5% for an investment property 

If you're strictly buying turnkey properties and financing with DSCR loans, keep in mind that you'll typically need to put down 20% or more, and because of the higher LTV, you’ll often get the highest interest rate available for your credit bracket.

This is tough to do with today's high prices and mortgage rates, which is why so many investors have slowed down or stopped investing until the market turns favorable again.Below is an example of a single-family home in Allentown.

This means the rental rates are average nothing to write home about, but the increase you'll get in appreciation is amazing, but not liquid until you sell. 

The short version is that you want a strong and diverse job market, low unemployment rates, a growing population, low vacancy rates and new development, affordability/cost of living, real estate laws and court system, good schools, and low crime.Check out the videos from Dave Meyers with BiggerPockets.

Hard Money  = There is nothing wrong with taking a hard money loan at a higher interest rate as long as you have an exit plan and can really drive to a time table to not turn that hard money loan into a long term loanDSCR - Pre-Payment Term: I see a lot of lenders sling out the 5 year pre-payment term to flash the lowest rate which could be an investor in a pickle if they need to do something different with the lending portion of the property in the future.

Most importantly, enjoy the journey and celebrate your achievements, no matter how small they may seem.

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