(and recently Anduril which just announced another 1B+ and 4k jobs to Columbus Ohio).

Once you have completed the consolidation portion of your 1031 exchange you now own a more expensive (and probably really nice) property that it must be your intent to hold for investment use. 

when you get to the rust belt and mid west no real need for it in a big way when you can still buy nice SFRs for 150 to 300k all day long.

(https://www.mynd.co)One of my co-workers at my last job (pre-covid times) used to work\invest with them, so I had probably registered on their site back then.

Many people don't want to self manage from out of state, and professional managers can suck up alot of the cash flow, and not do as great of a job as you would've hoped. 

Hi, pre foreclosure in all of its permutations, before the bank sends Notice of Default (NOD) or efter which is state even county dependant but often starts a 4 week clock till the trustee auction are the 2nd most difficult deal scenario and IMHO only experienced investors should bother, the 1st most difficult deal scenario are bidding at the court house steps on lord only knows what is being auctioned off sometimes even 2nd mortgages, you need to do so much home work to attempt to reduce your risk at the court house steps...Pre foreclosure no one talks about these issues, always about the nice sounding stuff like "motivated seller" get a good deal etc etc both are usually not the case.- 95% of folks in pre or post NOD want to stay in their house, keep their house inspite of them 100% will loose the house at the auction. 

The 2nd person really liked the house and even mentioned how nice the rehab was, relative to comparables they have seen.

This will increase the return above what can be obtained on a passive investment.The flipside of having the power to control everything is that it can be alot of work (and a full-time job if a person is putting in sweat equity).

It's a job. 

I know a great agent in the area who helped my friend buy in Ogden and did a great job negotiating.