The only situation that I think it would make sense for you to start investing right now would be if you are not investing the full $200,000 and are looking to take some money off the board and put it into a safer investment.

Hope that makes sense.

You do run a "risk" of being outbid at REO sale and "losing" the property, but given that may happen, the "total debt" is your security as you may bid up to that amount where it makes sense, but you may also be able to cash out for a healthy profit at sale if you so choose.

If you think about it in a mortgage sense..

If im out of state, does it make sense to join social media groups, etc. to accomplish the same thing without being physically there? 

Property management....it just make business sense as a leverage point for efficiency of your time. 

I'd hate for a temporary dip in the quality of the tenant pool to be giving my landlord "spidey sense" false alarms on account of taking an extra month or two to fill a unit.

Biggest struggle is finding deals that make sense where the numbers work and in locations that would work for STR.

That makes a lot of sense. 

We do about 20-25/yr so financially it makes sense.