However from my initial research on the area it seems that the population is at -1.2% decline rate between 2000-2019.

Initially I was thinking long term rental but the market is just not priced that way to have good coc doing that (Max 6%)Recently I ve been entertaining the idea of doing STR to achieve my goal.

Already created our investment company, built our initial website, and found our 1st deal. 

Initially the house was a home run at $380k but with so many offers it ran up to $420k.

The main difference between those two strategies is you should be able to house hack for a lot cheaper amount of initial capital than a buy/hold.

At 80% occupancy the storage unit building combined with the now rehabbed retail space, the property will be cash-flowing about $25,000 a year($2,100/month at 80% occupancy).Once we are at 80-90% occupancy we will refinance doing 75% LTV and recoup 100% of my initial investment ($105,000) as well as my partners rehab costs (20k).

It basically means that if you used your initial entitlement amount, once a loan is paid off, you can request to have full entitlement back one time.

My initial thought is the seller is asking for a lot already.

I never allow a tenant to be more than 15 days behind on rent before initiating eviction.

@Chi Wen - We are also debating the pros and cons, but our initial thinking is to put 20% down if we are able to.