@Amy Beth This house is walking distance from one of several universities/colleges in the town.

If you can't find reviews, be very concerned because there is more than one operator that frequently renames itself to distance itself from the bad reviews people have written. 

Ultimately I would love to start investing in rental properties and potentially even short term rentals through Airbnb or VRBO, but right now I have no cash and poor credit, so those are unfortunately probably longer term aspirations.

So far I have found @David Greene 's, book on Long distance real estate investing insightful an helpful in laying out a foundation from which to proceed.

As soon as we bought it, we did a few minor upgrades and replaced AC (unexpected expense).Within a year of being there she had our first kid and got pregnant again shortly after that.

@Brennan Crick  PS a year goes by really fast, when you have a short term loan.

Most HML lenders lend on short term transactions so you could use them to buy a home, fix it up but then you need to have the exit strategy in place to pay them off.

Hey BP Community,Just wanted to reach out and get some advice from Landlords who are successfully using the short term crashpad niche as a way of investing. 

Now that i am out of the military working in a new W2 career, i am trying to get back into the RE investing and actually understand how to invest more appropriately and correctly compared to just purchasing houses that i would like to live in...Currently i have about 80k saved up for my next investment deal and just feel like im coming up short on anything even coming close to 1% rule, so to see if there are ways to invest it, i figured i would ask the public how they would go about investing the money, because i am always up for learning something new.If possible, could you throw a quick example or maybe a short answered deal you could possibly go buy today in your own market to get an idea...I am currently searching up to 2hrs from the Tampa, FL area.

Regarding foreclosures and short sales:One thing to take into account, for a VA loan, the house has to be in livable condition.