Happy to talk further on the area (we are large enough to offer options to focus on student rentals/UW Madison campus, and anything from Class C to A locations or suburban/surrounding communities) but to help you consider broad initial search, you could start by deciding how important cash flow is. 

Downside is you likely need to be asset class and location agnostic.

Hell, you can go to a nice steak house and buy yourself a dinner, then get home and realize you could have cooked it for yourself and saved money.

Depends on the Class of the property/tenant.Class A, you may just have occassional maintenance issues.Class B, more maintenance issues, some tenant payment issues, some tenant drama.Class C, a lot of maintenance issues, a lot of tenant payment issues, a lot of tenant drama.Class D, too much to list.

I like the West Mobile area, its class A area, you can definitely find deals there, 3 bedroom with 2 bathroom for around 220k or so, you may have to wait a couple of years for positive cash flow but properties there increasing in values better than others.

Some of the best BRRRR deals I have seen play out this way:You buy a home cheap enough that when you do a renovation and pull out 75-80% LTV, your rent covers your mortgage and you have returned most of your investmentThis is for A-B class areas. 

Class A.

It seems that it takes an article in a big publication for them to do anything (NYT finally did a piece on CM), and journalists don't like to write those articles until there are lawsuits (even better a class action) so they are not just repeating industry gossip.

My metro STR is much cheaper(180-280 nightly) and in the “burbs” which tends to be working class clientele, which is okay.

Each class you need to take is based on the required knowledge for the next class(s).