Having a reasonable ear to the ground and thinking you're buying at a good price is different from wishing it to happen, since you don't have any way of knowing when you're at the bottom or when you've reached the top.

They are my eyes and ears for property, loans and other types of information, I feel they are invaluable as my property managers and they work incredibly hard.  

Ring ring ringWhy are you not letting the tradesmen into the house?

Cincinnati and many of the surrounding inner ring suburbs can be very street by street.As for STR, unless you have something fairly special and are great at marketing your property beyond just listing it on Airbnb, you will likely not have a homerun deal.  

Perhaps giving them a ring to do a casual catch up every fortnight or so? 

@Tanuj Yadav The biggest hurdle is finding a property management team that will be your eyes and ears on the ground.

Inventory is pretty low here at present, but if you keep your eyes on the market and ear to the grapevine it's not impossible to identify a value-add opportunities in the realm of 10+ cap.To your question above, school zones will certainly incentivize a certain kind of renter.

Another is, would this reasonably be the way to start out investing rather than trying to jump into a ring, with well seasoned investors?

Happy to give you an ear and talk through if you'd like, best of luck!

You can take money from the Trust as a benefit or convert assets to yourself, e.g. write yourself a check and put into your checking account, then buy that diamond ring.