To answer your question more specifically.......I really like diversification - to me, diversification leads to a certain security - not having all my eggs in one basket or market.Colorado Springs is a booming market and I believe this will continue.

My only problem is I'm the type of person who likes to have his cake and eat it too.

I've been weighing the pros and cons of the distance between properties, but you're right, even a little bit of distance eats up a lot lot of time going back and forth.I'll start work on learning about nearby areas and definitely look into the local groups.

Otherwise, if they don't, I'll have to eat a month or 2 of rent, but there is still a high non-student interest in houses around UT, and I'll just rent to non-students for a year or two, then get back on the school cycle again. 

Government officials in most States would really love seeing their people eating out of their hands for any sort of rental housing.    

Don’t forget that you will need to live the monk’s life and say no to anything that you can’t eat.

Depends on the home value.Jatinder ... be aware some of the advice being offered above is U.S.A centric and things will play a little differently in Canada.When dealing with residential financing in Canada, the only costs on a refinance (with the same lender) would be any pre-payment penalty on your existing financing; an appraisal of the property (you can usually convince the lender to eat this); and the cost to register the new lien on title (lender normally eats this as well).If you were planning to force equity and refinance a property shortly after acquisition, you would initially finance it with open terms (no penalty for pre-payment) or a variable rate note (penalty is 3-months interest).

Sell, do a 1031 exchange so taxes don't eat up your equity  and buy two smaller SFs for cash or a little bit of leverage or even better yet buy one with cash and one with leverage. 

People need to eat too and they're not telling grocery stores or restaurants they have to give their food away for free.

I was cautioning you against buying in an area that is super low acquisition, consistently section 8 tenants and high cash flow- typically those areas don't appreciate at all and management, maintenance and turnover can eat all of your cashflow up anyhow.