It does have it's downfalls and it quite out of date, but my current tenant is from FF and is fantastic.

And while it might not be attractive to all real estate investors, I believe it can be a fantastic way to start to build experience, build profit/cash flow and establish yourself as a STR professional in your market and then use that to build a co-hosting/management business and work with investors that want to you use their knowledge and expertise to partner on projects.Point is, don't believe everything everyone says about what is "bad" and what is "good".

If you’re working with a lower budget, say $100-$150k, Cleveland could be a fantastic option.

Fantastic so far.

Certain pockets of Indianapolis are fantastic.

If you're interested in that, the booking software I use is called OwnerRez and it's better than fantastic.

If you're open to exploring other markets, Ohio has some fantastic opportunities.

Hello Bigger Pockets Community,My fiancé and I are beginning our real estate investment journey but we live and work in one of the most expensive markets in the world - even though we are 20 minutes from San Francisco there is not a property in our city listed at under 1 million (yes).So I recently took a trip to Costa Rica for the sole purpose of identifying regions we would like to invest in and ended up finding a fantastic little condo for our starter property.

The Pocono region is a fantastic choice for an STR due to its appeal to tourists throughout the year. 

Congratulations on closing your second property—that’s a fantastic achievement.