It is possible to juice an improved return on an investment that unleverd returns say 10% when your cost of debt is higher than 10%, as long as your tax savings (from being able to write off the interest on the debt) are greater than the gap between the two.  

This combination of factors makes Columbus and its suburbs a compelling choice for real estate investors seeking a fruitful out-of-state investment opportunity. 

Any market presents a fruitful opportunity to invest in Real Estate.

@Jason Clemens if you have time freedom and can engage the occasional issue that pops up, you are willing to learn an active business to juice your returns and learn remote self management, then yes I encourage you to pursue STRs.

My wife and I are experienced with LTRs in town, but given the location of this property we think there’s tremendous potential in the short and medium term market, we just don’t have the experience/data to know if the juice will be worth the squeeze for furnishing the place.

Besides fixing an appliance a year, if you have good tenants you can enjoy the fruits of long-term rentals for a long time.

Im in the Atlanta and Cleveland markets from Texas and have enjoyed the fruits of out of state real estate with 6.08% yields on a couple of properties after 2 years and 14.07% YTD. 

It was a great first investment and helped get the landlord juices flowing....

But you have to look at the other benefits of RE since that's where the real juice (wealth generation) comes from. 

I do think you’re trying to squeeze too much juice out of one property with that boarding house/air bnb idea.