There are plenty of cheap hotels, just don't stay in the 'tourist' areas!

A cheap motel room with 2 beds is $400/week. 

I would like to invest in cheap fixer-upper homes for the price of 20-40K to remodel myself and then rent them out.

Just do your DD thoroughly and be extra careful if you're about to buy dirty cheap properties with high cashflow.

But keep in mind, property management is not cheap.

I read BP's tax strategies book and did my bookkeeping for the year so I'm pretty familiar about tax strategies for investment properties.I'm currently splitting rent with a friend at a cheap apartment.

Most investors don't get that and will look for cheap neighborhoods.

As my non-real estate friends stated at dinner "when i move in, I just want to move in, not fix a thing" ... think about it like that, and if the basement isn't finished,  it's  not going to get those who don't want to do anything else.The brick in the front looks like it needs a power wash, this would be  a cheap and easy fix!  

I would avoid buying cheap properties and trying to get rents that are 2% of the purchase price, specifically on the SE side.

Right now I am working with State Farm and it's not as cheap as Shelter but I know there are other insurance companies more expensive out there like Farmers.