.- Check the Off-Market Facebook Housing groups at your school. 

They also benefit from strong schools, which can be a huge draw for long-term tenants.While you may not achieve high cash flow immediately in these areas, the property values and rents tend to appreciate steadily over time, aligning well with your goals.

Also the school districts have been increasing property taxes in A LOT of investment properties thus eating some of our profits. 

Seller finance the property- ask for an up front, non-refundable down payment of $XXX (which could be used as his primary residence down payment), payments of $X over X years at X interest rate with a balloon payment in X years2.

Interest rates don't help, but investors were also successful in the 80s and 90s with rates in this range. 

HUD targets average rents for an area, so just like average school grades, this typically translates to Class C property rents.In our Metro Detroit market, the MAJORITY of the claims about getting higher than market rents can be traced to a Class D Neighborhood/Property. 

The resident is great and the rent rate reflects that. 

I know the university, the med school, and the hospital are there, so surely an MTR would work well.

My two cents: get a job and HUSTLE right out of school and create some income and save up some capital.

In reality this strategy still works, but we are having to leave more of our own money in the deal because prices are high and/or rent won’t justify maxing the cash out refinance because interest rate is high.