The local property will give you practical management experience.You might do better buying a REIT if you are planning to buy single properties far from home.

I suggest connecting with someone that can sit down with you and run each of these scenarios with estimated numbers to get a better idea of what is realistic and what isn't.

Any guidance would be most appreciated, so we can be better prepared for our tax returns next year.Thanks so much for your time !

Ryan, renting a place in PR to learn the market better sounds like a good idea.   

Can you think of better ways to use it than how I am using it now?

Since this is an INVESTMENT website, a DUPLEX is a FAR BETTER INVESTMENT in Austin than a SFH.  

For right now, I think you're better served handling that yourself and partnering with a CPA on the tax work. 

@Brian Kantor late to the party, but the $4k/year quote definitely seems excessive and hope you did better with Proper.

You may need to offer more to sellers and sell to a smaller group of investors (who may buy with cash and/or are willing to work on tighter margins).To help understand your market better, put your name on your competitor wholesalers’ lists and see what they are “offering” and compare those to what you would expect using your current model.At this point I am having trouble getting the property contracted.

-Build a strong network in Detroit of real humans over a period of months, buy a better deal, hold it for 10+ years, weather early storms:  better chance for success.Even on that latter deal though, are you going to cash flow in month 1 or year 1 or even year 5?