This deal has 3 viable exit options: 3) flip to another investor - I got the first look and there are investors interested at above my basis; 2) hold it as rentals long term, pushing rents to market on turns/renewals; 1) the real value - sell them off to owner occupants for substantially higher than my basis in the property.Although I'm looking to buy and hold long term, the upside on the sell-off option is very compelling.

The letter won't arrive until Friday and I wanted to give them a heads up of this information since I'll be using Apartments.com to collect rent.

100k in the markets you mentioned will help push you closer to your goal, especially levered 10x with a 10% down second home loan.

Not enough supply coupled with high demand, pushes prices higher, not lower

Just wanted to say thanks to all the helpful information on here as it definitely pushed me to finally do something instead of just reading about it. 

The challenge is you have no room to refinance or borrow on the suburban property without pushing yourself cash-flow negative.

I knew about RE, but was deterred because of Dave Ramsey and the lot of influencers pushing Index Funds, but I know what I want! 

Going forward I would push a rent increase every year.

Went ahead and made an offer and put down earnest money with the sellers realtor.  2 days later the realtor called me and said there was another offer, and they wanted my highest offer. 

It pushed all my thoughts about getting licensed as an agent out of my head.