Your interest rate may be higher, but they will still finance you if you have stable income, like a W2 job. 

There are two fundamental ways to value a property.1] The property value in relation to comps2] Value based on cash flowBankers like to see a stable business model with future predictive cash flow.

My current 2 rentals are in the same area, and its very stable with minimal appreciation.

It comes down to personal preference:  Do you want to be debt free, earning solid rental income, that will remain relatively stable, and is safe? 

So while the LA outcome distribution probably features higher tail risk (either tail), somewhere like NC probably has a smaller chance of outsized moves in either direction, but it does have significantly strong market fundamentals (intrinsic and macroeconomic), so I think NC offers much more stable and sustained appreciation. 

Can agents have a full-time job and work as a successful independent real estate contractor?

I know this comes with it's own garbage bag of problems (lots of cleaning for the weekly turn-over, not as stable income, possibly some lower income people floating through there, etc). 

I agree that vine neighborhood is the more stable of the 2.

Short term rentals are typically tight in terms of cash flow, but appreciation is stable and there is a finite amount of land on the rock! 

I will likely do a few smaller investments and shelf this until later when I have more capital, and then do it in two phases.If you have any ideas on where one can go to find potential investors I would appreciate it.Dustin