Around year 7 or 8, ideally year 10, re-assess your equity and maturation of those debt notes and re-adjust how you invest to suit your needs. 

Having it solid in a spreadsheet instead of in your head or on notebook paper and playing with the numbers for the repair budget isn't wrong.

I also think, the flat rate ppl are playing to a race to the bottom. 

Ideally was thinking a duplex, triplex, or quadplex to get started and use an FHA loan but I also have a private lender that can possibly help with up to $200k worth of a down payment.

A 4-plex would be ideal and you could play around with doing 1 long-term, 1 mid-term, and 1 short-term, plus you, if it works on your area to upgrade your income.

Look, we were for most part playing a game of American Football for a long time.

Generally speaking, Boston proper is an appreciation market (low cap rates) unless you have a solid value-add play.

Be honest—are you waking up early and controlling your day, or are you rolling out of bed and playing catch-up?

Honestly if you are doing STR I would suggest doing Austin itself rather than all the way out there in Kyle - maybe a couple of years ago when the prices were through the roof in Austin city itself this would be a good alternative but there is a blip right now where you can get a god entry point in Austin (downtown/east ideally) for STR

They don't allow auto payments or automatically add late fees, and tenants would have the option to pull their payment back, which is not ideal.