If you buy a nice investment, a bad manager can ruin it.

For example, TenantCloud will push (syndicate) your advertised rental to multiple websites at once, casting a wider net and increasing the chances of finding a renter.No matter how wide you cast the net, you still need to have some pre-screening requirements to weed out the people that are wasting your time.

I'm in 38114, which may be the problem, but I will never buy another house from them. 

(Though maybe twice so maybe a bad example.)But if you buy an identical house 10 miles out of primary city for 20% less and charge 20% less rent.

So you want to buy when or where inventory is up-- irrespective of rates.

We have thought about buying an investment property and not sure if we should flip a house or buy a 3-4 rental.

Many DSCR loans come with standard 2-3-5 year Pre Payment Penalties, borrowers usually have the option to 'buy out' of these penalties upfront with points or by accepting a higher interest rate.

I would look at both areas everyday on realtor or redfin, check out the houses run numbers on them, and over time you will start leaning more towards an area while also zeroing in on what youre looking to buy. 

When the banks saw that there was a huge wave of defaults, they stopped lending so people that needed bank loans to buy a house were not able to buy houses.  

Investment Info:Single-family residence buy & hold investment.