My only goal is to have all the details clearly spelled out so we can adjust price and deadlines in a fair manner as things come up. 

To be fair, I've encountered situations where the Section 8 rent received was higher than what cash paying tenants were paying.

I think then that if you were me you would use the 200k to purchase something outright in cash, and not use the 200k for down payments on 1 or multiple properties - fair?

Even though the nightly rate is high, the RE has such high value that the margins are fairly tight.  

I also notice that @Gregory Schwartz mentioned Huntsville in particular—I definitely think that it’s a strong market for long-term appreciation.As for your concerns about investing out of state, I think an investment strategy that is as close to passive as possible would be best.A do-it-yourself approach—where you acquire a property, place a tenant, interview a bunch of property managers, and handle maintenance yourself—is going to be pretty tough to do remotely.

If the water bill is $100 a month, increase the price by 20% (or whatever you decide is fair) to compensate you for the time required to split and bill and to cover additional use when tenants squander the utility.

Hey James: These are note from an attorney that we use to evictions hope they help you.If you need exact notices may be I can paste them on here so they will help everyone is IL that needs to do an eviction.Eviction in Illinois Are Done By The Following Rules:There are some exception like the city of Chicago, Evanston & Cook County but the rest of the State Of IL is fairly straight forward.

When I go to get more work done, I use the person that was fairly priced and met my expectations that first time, I do not shop around again for the lowest deal.

Worse than negative cash flow is buying out of negative cash flow at current rates.Note I put forth certain effort to keep my leverage high   Until the recent rent hikes, it was fairly simple to refinance every few years and keep the leverage without large penalty from rate differential.  

But as you said it's in a rural area, there probably isn't that much competition.I think the labor rates are fair.