Cosmo - I personally don't know Phoenix well, but if I had to do this in another city I would look at income levels, crime levels, and population growth (if you can) by zip code and/or area within a DMA as a starting point.

Your income needs to be 100x it and you need to invest 10% of your net(so less than $5mil) annually in structured product type investing incl RE, let it season for 3-5 years, re-invest the first bit of profits and by year 8-10 you should be comfortable.$500k annual income is alot for your average folk, but it's not "retire me" income at all.

I'm looking at monthly cost to seller vs. anticipated rental income, purchase price relevant to the ARV of the area and interest rate, balloon, etc.

I am invested in a small multi family in TX and the management was not able to fill the property and do repairs and the income has dwindled badly.

You can also think about a strategy that combines a house hack with a "live-in flip" where maybe the duplex isn't in a condition where you would want to live with your family when you purchase it, but you could do value-add renovations that improve your families day-to-day living but also the value and rental income for when you all move to the next property or sell. 

It gives you access to funds at a relatively low interest rate, and you can repay it as the rental generates income.

As a savings of a few thousand dollars on furniture, could determine if your occupancy rate is 65% versus 70%...If the revenue is $50,000/yr that's $2,500 in one year (which could be the breakeven for that specific line-item expense).To determine you total breakeven point occupancy rate, and not just related to the furniture, take your operating expenses plus your debt service and divide it by your effective gross income.

For investors, this can mean boosting rental income or increasing the property value significantly.

Bought it as a safe bet thinking it would do roughly $35k annually in short term rents.

Imagine making millions of dollars over the course of your career and then having to pay 30-50% every year to uncle sam instead of compounding that cash over time.This is exactly what real estate professionals have learned to mitigate.To reduce their taxable income, they just buy a building every year, do a cost seg, and use depreciation to reduce their tax liability dramatically.Their personal wealth snowball grows much larger and much faster than their W2 counterparts who give most of their money back to the government each year.Following this strategy as a real estate professional is one of best ways to end up with a much larger net worth at the end of your career.