Actually more becuase now you are self-employed and have all of those pesky overhead costs. 

Sometimes large employers will rent furnished apartments for their employees coming to town on a regular basis.Also, if you believe strongly in the appreciation of the house, how bad would the negative cash flow be if you did long term rental? 

Generally your hours working at BP as a W-2 employee would not be part of RE professional hours unfortunately.For those who are RE professionals, gain on sale of rental real estate is still capital gains and still avoids self employment taxes just the same for those tho are not REPS so there is no downside to being a REP in the example you provided Scott. 

Clean, friendly, activity rich and lots of employment driving growth as far as I found. 

Are employers moving in, is the population growing, is the average household income high, does it have good market fundamentals?

Are you self employed or work a W2 job?

Hello Ashish, as H-1B visa status doesn't permit in active jobs other than their employer. .

Look for population growth and variety in the number of employers in the area. 

Employment: I've got three international students with solid job incomes and have been covering their rent with no issues for the past two years (2 of them don't have parents in this country).

I am a 21 year old and I’m currently employed as a 1099 contractor (intern) for a digital marketing company and have been working there for a little over a year now (Haven’t filed taxes yet).