But I think there is a gap and opportunity for investors to realize a tremendous amount of value from this, especially those in the HCOL/SFR space. 

As you mentioned those specific details about MTRs geared toward traveling healthcare professionals, these are things I think would help us tremendously as landlords because we play both roles.

However, if I had started off with a house hack, I could have lower my monthly mortgage tremendously which would have helped me build up my savings at a much quicker pace than I had.

Your options at that point would be tremendous given the savings and compounding.  

They seem honest and genuine, and have seen tremendous growth the last few years.

Some of us pay a tremendous amount in taxes to the government and would like to pay a lot less.

many houses in the midwest, for example, are very old and need major rehabs.i personally think out of state investing is more difficult than advertised, and much more difficult in the current investing environment, with: prices high; interest rates high; tremendous demand for inventory, by both investors and retail buyers; and good PMs, contractors, etc. booked up.here's a really thoughtful thread with the experience of another CA investor and lots of different responses:https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/1215726-break...and here are some threads about how it can very easily go wrong:https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1159104-overl...https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/963/topics/1195280-expe...https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1160450-run-i...https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1137397-balti...finally, you also said you "don't have a lot of money to start with." 

What a tremendous accomplishment at such a young age. 

We did this for each guest room at our B&Bs and it helped tremendously.

This involves tremendous stress and likely little to no profit.