Most of the markets that provide a good blend of both cash flow (yield) and growth right now are in the Midwest.

The inspection period is your opportunity to uncover as much information as possible about your purchase.

You can blend the two and live in the rental so paying off "your home" would be in fact be a multi unit building.

There are some things that a virtual inspection may not uncover.  

I know for a fact we could hire one investigator at $50,000 a year and they would uncover enough fraud to pay for the position 4x over.But, just like legalized marijuana, I disagree with it but I can't stop the machine.

There are a few details to uncover here to determine the next best steps.

However, I dollar cost average with each new property and my blended basis is good.  

., target retirement date) that provides a blend of stock and bond returns.

I disregard those and focus on comps that have a realistic looking calendar where there's a blend of available and booked dates.

From a cursory search of Zillow I uncovered multiple homes on the water in your budget.