But, you can't determine quality by simply what they charge.....as there are plenty of terrible agents who also charge a lot.You'll need to determine what value they bring to you personally and do a cost benefit analysis of whether the cost is worth it to you or not.

Off-market opportunities can be good because there is less competition, finding motivated sellers is the challenge.

Whether or not you should furnish both as bedrooms, or one as an office depends on what your competition is doing. 

I was thinking of using these funds for the closing costs instead.

I'd say all the stats are similar from Cincy, Columbus, and Cleveland EXCEPT we are a lower cost of entry by $36k(cincy)-63K(columbus)!

When you have a loan on an RE, you have it leveraged meaning you “own” it without having “paid” the full cost.  

Also, your screening process either needs major improvement or your units are in a Class D neighborhood - and this is the tenant pool you have to deal with.Why don't you "shop" your local competition and at least see what competitive units look like?

However, the biggest challenge is dealing with well and septic systems, which can cost $15K - $75K to fix.

So....... with my previous CPA (who has since unexpectedly retired) we did a cost segregation study on an asset that was placed into service in 2021 which broke down the bonus depreciable items into 3 buckets, a 15 year bucket, a 7 year bucket, a 5 year bucket and the rest would be on a 39 year straight line depreciation schedule as it is a short term rental.

I am also getting 10k seller credit from seller, and could either use that one to buy down interest rate or just pay off the closing cost. the lender is giving me few option one with higher fund at closing and lower interest rate, and one with lower fund at closing with higher interest rate (about 0.2% difference) With the high interest rate right now, do you think it is better to do higher interest rate, and refinance later or should I just try to get as low as interest rate as possible and do not worry about refinance ?