Build with my proven formula or hold onto my money and wait?

Buy and Hold?

lots of options depending on your goals. i focus primarily in knoxville with long term holds and a few flips. my long term holds are focused in 37921 and 37912 zip codes and focus on long term tenants and student rentals. oak ridge has a great upside for long term renting as well as mid term with the lab and all the contract labor that goes in and out of there. happy to pass out some references if needed. 

My interest is in building wealth through eventual buy and holds, but still working on the savings end of it all.

Memphis holds a lot of great opportunities.

That said, we don't need to be next to family but being somewhat close by has advantages so those places are favored somewhat.The strategy is to buy, househack a value-add multifamily for 2 years then rinse and repeat until we can build up enough capital to either start developing, move to larger multifamily or the wife wants to start a senior care facility. 

First, I want to address the question of rental arbitrage vs. buy and hold STRs:In my experience buying the real estate (even if it results in fewer units) is almost always better than rental arbitrage.

Most flippers loose money on their first few flips til they learn what they are doing.Buy and hold is a much more forgiving strategy.

Now we all know is Agent A works with listing agent B they talk on the phone and seal a verbal...holding the house for the client of Agent A so that no one else can get the house in the morning.Otherwise, if realtors are too weak kneed to present low balls, change realtors.

Our goal is to focus on buy and hold properties for now, and we are hoping to purchase our first property in the next few months.