I still plan on house hacking at least one more time but one thing to keep in mind is sometimes life happens and tenants can’t pay on time.  

@Mindy Nicol absolutely nailed it !

One that comes to mind is Midterm Rentals with Jesse Vazquez as he's near your area and draws a lot of the west coast operators.

Having a goal in mind is going to help you decide what to even start looking for when you are researching each market. 

From CA, Originally was thinking STR but now my mind is taking me towards a BRRRR more LTR.

With this in mind, I think I share the same goal as you of having a solar panel on one of my properties - be it on my personal residence or an investment property. 

I know it's a long shot but thought I would ask.Logically, since I was down about 90% anyway during this crypto winter my mind is saying double down because I got nothing to loose (What's another hit going to do).My heart is saying "put your tail between your legs and strut off home" hahaThanks  

What are gotchas I should keep in mind? I

If you are in an inexpensive area that is growing, you can often get both cash flow AND great appreciation.With that in mind, I thought it worth sharing this fresh US Census data.

cost to sell are going to be 10 to 15% minimum to plug into TK resellers pipe lines.. have you run the numbers  lets say purchase rehab is:PP 70krehab  30k  pretty average in that age class assets in Cleveland ( keep in mind I funded over 300 deals in Cleveland personally in the last few years so I do have some experience in that market).So 100k all in.Cost of capital  2 points 12%  plus your going to need at least 30k in cash to pull this off. lets say your super good at what you do and can do it all in 6 months.2 points   2k  12k  6 months  6k   for total of 8k  HML will hit you with another 2k to 3k in junk fees so thats really 10k in borrower costs.tAx's  lets say 1k for 6 months.Closing costs when ou buy 1,500 to 2kClsoing costs including commish and seller concessions and title and escrow at least 10% Utls and insurance  1500.0010k profit So that all adds up to an exit sales price that needs to be at least 124,500 hard costs and now you need to sell for 130k to 140k to make your profit. and given where investor want to be they want 1% rule or .08   so use 1% for easy math they want that house to rent for 1300 to 1400.