Relying on it for those purposes is an exercise in futility.

Even if you had more arrows (higher volume) you are still relying on a lot of luck to hit the target multiple times. 

We don't plan to rely on real estate to become financially independent.

They can be relied upon for the address  of the property and for their asking price.

You mentioned LA being a location of interest due to the amount of work in your industry and your network of tenants - San Diego has an exponentially growing festival scene, is within hours from just about every major festival on this side of the Country, and has such a strong rental market that you’d be silly to rely on a network to fill vacancies.The choice is yours 😉

I'm thinking that my best bet is to invest in Chattanooga as prices are lower and I have tons of contacts here that can get eyes on the property for me that I can rely on. 

I do my own accounting in quickbooks but I don’t know the exact rules, I just rely on her for those.

In Ontario landlords use the system only as a absolute last resort and usually rely on other methods to get rid of tenants.

(Fortunately other members are good about calling out erroneous information, but we have all seen people post information that is clearly wrong on here and if newer members don't know it's wrong and then rely on it that could be problematic for them.)- Podcasts: I have listened to over a thousand hours of podcasts and still listen to them every day. 

Relying on appreciation alone doesn't seem like the best strategy to go for...