-------Building an ADU in Raleigh is a fantastic way to enhance your property’s value (a whole other discussion there) and increase your property’s income-earning potential. 

I prefer AZ myself personally (lived in Prescott 4 years and Tucson for one and loved both places), but for many people NYC can’t be beat especially if they’re trying to make a name for themselves in careers in finance, art, theatre, music etc. it’s practically a requirement to live there for certain careers.  

Alternatively, if you leave your paycheck in your checking account earning .01% interest, there is no real benefit.  

I would focus on getting a solid job/career then going into a house hack. 

It's active in the field career training via doing. 

I know the 401 penalties are steep but my thoughts are if I can gain enough cash flow to leave my current career, do I really need to worry about whatever money is in there to draw from 20 years down the road?

Since you're a citizen but you live and work abroad you'd still qualify mostly for second homes occupancy or investor non owner occupancy (primary is hard to claim if your job requires you to be physically next to the office as an example so an underwriter isnt going to readily believe you unless you can get HR to write you a letter to state you're remotely capable of earning this income/job duties anywhere).Hopefully that helps let me know if you have further questions into mortgage planning.

If you are not cash flowing and have a high earning job you don't need to deal with 3 or 4 rentals. 

Nathan I think this is true if your just talking about rental props for landlording.. the last 2 to 3 years have been the best years of my career.. building new builds and Loaning our funds.

Lake county Northern CA where I lived and started my RE career also had massive fires that burnt over 700k acres went right through one of the developments my family did ( the Hunter Ranch) homes were destroyed there but not that many as those were 20 acre lots so maybe 10 houses..