I travel frequently for work, so my original strategy was: - buy home in desirable area, furnish it well, live in it while local, rent it on AirBnb or VRBO when I'm traveling - once I have additional equity, buy another home and do the same thing, either keeping home #1 as a STR or rent it long term, depending on the current market - rinse and repeatI was considering Austin, TX as my starting point, due to its massive recent popularity.

I've been looking very closely and very frequently at MLS listings to see if anything popped up.

This type of question comes up frequently.

Comps help a lot - just know there are always exceptions to the rules.When starting out, live by what you hear here - If you frequent BP, you'll often hear things like:- Never buy a weird house- 3/2's are often the safest bet- Stay under $150K (depends on your area)- Location, location, location.I am often amazed at the shear volume of information FREELY shared here.  

., short-term disability) or people who move frequently due to their line of work.Rethink your rental criteria and aim for quality tenants who won't impose these types of risks or use a shorter agreement so you don't get stuck with someone who can't make the rent.Best of luck to you!

MFH opportunities are less frequent right now but they do exist.  

I'm from an hour away in Goldsboro, but I frequent raleigh quite often.

How frequent are you suggesting here?  

If you do not regularly flip and only get one or two big hits a year, I would say that an aggressive realtor who is consistently closing a smaller but more frequent number of deals is going to win that one.

I come down from NY frequently to get away and I want to start in this market because I know it more than NY.