I still remain interested in fix and flipping, but my ultimate goal is more rooted in long-term buy and holds, likely via small multi family units.  

Maybe airbnb's in Soap Lake?

If you don't know what you'd like 5 years out then people are going to be proposing a lot of possibilities that won't have ground to take root in.The fact also stands that, without W-2 income, financing can be very hard without a lot of cash or a proven track record in real estate.

No more tenants at my home.However the root cause of your problem is you have given your tenant permission to pay rent late if they choose.

I just feel strongly that we have choices in how we interact with other people - we can either be their cheerleader and root for their success, or we can be annoyed at new people entering our space and be sarcastic and discouraging.

The way we look at it, it takes us 30 mins to clean the rental and if we charge 10$ each time, we are paying ourselves 20$ an hour (minus the costs of a few replacement items like TP, soap, coffee, juice, etc.)  

I like the job and plan to be here for a while so I’ve decided to put down roots.

However, my root is here and my plan is to keep at least 1 local unit as a hedge on future house price in the local area, for myself and my kids.

Little things like soap/shampoo dispensers in the showers are low cost but help you to stand out.

Nice job avoiding the soap box grandwally, seems like we all have to tread lightly on that subject.To answer the question, most experienced investors do shoot for a minimum of $100 per month, per door in cash flow.