Quote from @Mathius Gazi: I picked up a two family last summer in New Haven and it is doing absolutely fantastic.

What is the compelling reason for them to pick you, with your competitive rates, over someone else they've already been using with competitive rates? 

Will put fertilizer and Rice Hulls in the pond to start the Algae to growing. 

So - somewhere 2 hours away, or somewhere you like to vacation in, or where all your family lives, or where you plan to move someday.Too many people are trying to do exactly what you're doing - pick a market based on a formula - and they end up buying a random 'cheap' property thousands of miles away, turn it over to people they've never met or even spoken to, and then... lose money.  

A couple problems dividing a property and selling in a “Timely” manner and then picking exchange properties of equal or greater value than the lots you sale.  

Does the market there pick up more in the spring as other markets do? 

If I would have used competent management, the manager that I picked and vetted, then it would have cash flowed, assuming they could have filled the vacancies.The big lesson I learned is that the property manager selected can make or break a deal. 

We will shop for used appliances where we can when we need one… or pick up used cabinets if we can, or search eBay for something smaller,  but going to the extreme of personally shipping something big in internationally for one-off renovation needs seems like a stretch of reasonable.Just like you mention, the number of unknowns would not seem to be worth it to me.Just my 2 cents.Randy  

The 1% rule is best only used as a quick and dirty evaluation used to pick which property you plan on running additonal calculations on.

You picked a great community to join.. have you checked out local comps to gauge the market vibe yet?