They also tend to stick with locals to create more affordable housing by locals for locals.

SEO optimization with targeted keywords can significantly boost visibility across these platforms.Strong photos and virtual tours tend to convert leads more effectively - tools like Asteroom or Sphere.app let you create these yourself.

These markets tend to have higher appreciation potential but are often cash flow negative unless you make substantial down payments.

However, if you'd like to continue to grow your portfolio and use your own funds (instead of OPM), then I would tend to say take out more than the 50k in order to fund future purchases.

Typically they tend to cash flow well so a 4 unit might hit those 1% rule.I'd also highly recommend local real estate meetups, as you'll get local insights

And then when a deal does not go as planning the investor tends to start the blame game. 

Plus, Zillow, Rentler and the other real estate platforms tend to have all sorts of unnecessary hoops to jump through for landlords, and I find a lot of their design very un-intuitive (I remember spending waaayyy too much time just trying to figure out simple things in Rentler).  ...why can't they make it easier?

They tend to get people to attend their seminars that have no understanding of RE Investing and think that they have to "pay to play".  

Also, the price points tend to be in line with that East Falls Mount Airy area.Happy to discuss the market anytime. 

Parents tend to stay in STR's further away from campus where overnight parking is less of an issue