This step is crucial and can make or break the success of your investment.How did you narrow down your search to Akron and Cleveland?

you'll probably get a good response, because it's a narrow, specific question. 

There are 1 man bands that often do not have scalability and do too much on their own. 

@Melissa Vass Scott The Midwest is doing better than most of the country.Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis and others.What criteria did you use to narrow your cities down to Cincinnati & Columbus?

The STR owners have banded together and are meeting with the town as a group, and it looks like the town will adopt some STR rules allowing and setting guidelines for STRs. 

If I were you, I would really try to narrow down the search to three specific cities that you're interested in.

1) We make sure backside funds are confirmed at title before we initiate frontside wire.2) Our agreement that we get the wholesaler to sign essentially would allow us to secure a loan against the property if for whatever reason there was an issue (as never happened).3) We generally insist that both the A-B and the B-C contract are at the same title company.

Narrow down your market first. 

I completely understand the importance of maintaining a professional relationship with tenants, and I will definitely keep that in mind.To answer your questions, I am still working on narrowing down my price range, but I’m aiming for something budget-friendly as this will be my first purchase.

What you need to do is narrow it down a bit.