My suggestion, is you visit all these potential locations with your family, and see which area calls to you, which areas you can see yourself enjoying, and allow the STR/MTR strategy take the second seat to your enjoyment and lifestyle vision for you and your family.

If I am interested in a property I call my agent, generally one of two people. 

I know this because I have 5 two bedrooms there.You could have possibly been lucky to break even in 2023 but now that HELOC on your primary home that you used as a down payment for your cabin is calling at an even higher interest rate than you planned on because the cash flow wasn't what you thought it'd be so it wasn't paid down as quickly as planned.

With larger multi-units, there's a common issue I call the "chronic disease of a fourplex": - One tenant might leave within a couple of months, with or without a valid lease

The tenants call us to report a problem, we call him, he calls the tenants back to coordinate a time to fix the problem.  

That’s a great idea to start the HELOC early while this is my primary, i called and found out that they do not like it when you move out soon after taking the HELOC, so thank you!

You could start with the basics cold calling, knocking, and social media.

I will give her till March 17th, since I already promised that and she has it in writing, but then I will increase the rent and will post an add for the property (and probably call a property manager as well, to see if they will take the property on)...Honestly, hiring a property manage is not that easy.

He will call subcontractors for just about every aspect of the job .

I recommend working with an investor-friendly agent who focuses on cold-outreach methods like cold-calling, cold-texting, etc to bring you off-market deals.