I am not an expert on Cleveland or Columbus but I will strongly recommend you visit the cities you may be interested in and tour the local market with a Broker/Agent that specializes in rentals.

More people on BP post about successes than the lessons they learned.

Plenty of people just move out of their homes after 1-2 years and buy another property. 

There are 3 people that are looking to move in. 2 of them passed background check and income verification.

I've thought of many different angels, but still not sure why this project was special/different or offering different terms.   

Like do some cleaning job, contacting maintenance people, knowing how to pay water bills etc. these are all the basic work when you become a landlord and you need to know how to manage your property first.

Buying existing rentals and improving it is another story.Ya I hear a lot of the same from people!

@Michael ClarkI recommend finding an accountant who specializes in real estate taxation and tax planning.

These firms specialize in this type of work, and as such, we rely on the information we receive from them to make determinations on how much capital we advance for improvements made to the property.In this case, we believe the third-party inspection company did not perform their duties.

So, the stigma that Austin doesn’t allow STR investment properties, outside of special circumstances, now seems inaccurate.To be clear, this doesn’t mean that there are no rules or regulations.