My wife and I are moving forward without any partners but if we meet some great people along the way that offer a different skill set than we have, that want to share risk together, speak of similar interest, and have fun while making money; then we will entertain it.

I know there are HOA fees associated, but am I missing the fun on Condo's or something?

I manually transfer the rental income to each properties savings account when it arrives (this is fun :) )7) I also have automated transfers every month that move the "Free Cash Flow" for each property into a separate high-interest savings account.

@Argent Cove I recommend Las Vegas, not the RE market but the casinos.

I would describe the STR journey as more "fun," however much more time consuming. 

Fun stuff.Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Here are some examples: (1) one of my clients buys 25 - 30 properties a month, he would never pay attention to a ranking on markets because he knows the towns he buys in, which has helped make him very successful (he's worth $20 - $25M USD), (2) my partner did some preliminary work for a hedge fun, they were looking to drop tens of millions of dollars - for them market trends mattered a lot because of the amount of capital they were deploying and the time horizon of the investments  I realize that I am not answering your question, but I hope that the above is useful as a frame work.

Good luck and have fun!

Sounds like you are having lots of fun and making some money.About me.

Evaluating other markets, though, I would not personally look at CO and Nevada, but would rather want to participate in the healthy appreciation of my home state, or get some geographic "plus points" of milder winters (CO) and strong economies (NV).Be well, and have fun!