This is one of the problems with housing in lower tier markets because on the surface they appear to be great value but capex makes it impossible in many cases to keep them up and running and therefore the cash flow from your spread sheet rarely translates to reality.

If you are willing to wait we are most likely going to see 100 basis point cut over the next year and a reduction in the spreads that lenders are working off of.

Nailing down a buy box in the area, funding, and having a plan will come out of absorbing a ton of knowledge and narrowing down to what makes the most sense to you, what fits your life, and what fits your goals the best. 

This taught us an important lesson: it might be time to bring on a dedicated dispositions specialist to ensure we maximize our spreads on every deal.

@Matthew Giblin you're highly unlikely to succeed if you spread yourself over 4 markets.Recommend you do more research and just pick one of the 4 markets.Then do a trial run and see how it goes. 

For example , find an apartment for 900k, find a buyer who will pay 950k you make the 50k spread in between.

You could spread that 80K over a couple deals down there.

Quote from @Rud Sev: Quote from @Chris Mason: I'd suggest narrowing down a bit.

For example, you take horizontal photos of spaces that are tall and narrow, so you should have shot them vertically.

Usually, they live out of town and want to narrow their housing options before visiting.