It seems like the right step is to start looking and buy in the bay area to protect against this downside and explore Knoxville investing later. 

The bummer part with going with variable accounts is the downside of the market, so definitely diverse your portfolio to save some of that for retirement and definitely look into tax free options.

Probably the main downside for both cities is the bureaucracy and the crime rates.

The down side is that it's about 10K a year.  

The downside, of course, it the lengthier commute to NYC.Nassau is another good option.

The downside of rent to own are- asymmetric market valuation opportunity: if market goes down tenant can drop, if market goes up landlord looses appreciation... it’s unequal... however if you do it when market is high you minimize risks- finding tenant: it apprears not as fast and easy as to find a regular tenant or regular buyer... but maybe I am not marketing it correctly... any advice/experience?

Of course there's plenty of BS and stuff no one needs or cares to know, and there's plenty of downside to the internet, but things that would have taken a lot of personal trial and error and crazy amounts of research 25 years ago can be discovered in minutes by those who can bother asking the right questions.There's advantages to doing something to learn about it, no doubt about it.

The only downside is the appreciation value factor which is low but the rents are there.

Additionally, they tend to appreciate well over time due to their prime location and superior construction.Disadvantages: The main downside is that A Class properties come with a higher initial investment cost.

The downside is that Lowes sets the prices of what they will pay the contractor to perform the work they are doing.