Not sure what kind of capital you're playing with, but some of those 5br or bigger homes crush it on Airbnb.

I'd love to spring board off of our existing property to build our family's future and [hopefully] with the bonus of not being dependent on art for the majority of my income and subsequently fall back in love with making art again!

Cats like to play with mice until they've killed them, and then unless they are starving just leave it as is (given the choice a cat would eat a live animal versus a dead one any day).

One of the added bonuses to this property was that it was actually two lots.

However, Kansas follows both bonus and sec 179 rule so depreciation should be the same as federal depreciation. 

3Beds/2baths with a bonus room and 1550 is on the conservative side relative to the market to attract a great pool of candidates.

The cap was the go-to metric 15 years ago when I started investing, now it seems way more factors come into play, such as appreciation, quality of the property (I bought something with a 22% cap in Braddock PA last year, but also the wind could blow it over at any minute...), and estimated future value increases.  

There are still several potential plays on these greystones, but again they're not just sitting out there for the taking (and they might not fit your investment model) 1.

More people will see these as ways to decrease a housing expense while living close to where they work or having option to live work play, which is why people live in large cities anyways. 

In July, we were closer to 30% year over year, so this slight decline is to be expected with seasonality at play.