Texas is about the only state outpacing us for growth.

But there's one thing you can't learn in school or from an education and  that is the "drive", the determination, the self motivation. 

I’ve only ever raised rents since I started in ‘12 which is consistent with population and job growth in my area.  

Even if the  weekly/monthly visit is just a drive by / walk around and not a trip inside, it still allows some things to be spotted.   

We factor in about 2.5% of purchase price for yearly taxes, 5% vacancy (ours is closer to 2%) 15% of rents for repairs and capex combined, we self manage so no PM, and use 2% for rent growth (ours is about 4%) and 2% for property value growth (ours has averaged about 3.75% in our area over 30 years). 

For the people trying to get to that level, though, in the so called growth phase of their wealth building strategy, leverage is a powerful powerful multiplier.

The plan is to monitor with Arduino-based moisture probes and RPi 'dispatcher', which drives a pump via sonoff switches.

You need to look at growth around it.600k an acre is high for a developer to pay.

My recommendation is to choose cities in safe and economically diversified areas with above-average income and population growth.

Those cities have shown growth and developing infrastructure to support the growing population.