In the summer months especially, I think Barcelona can compete with any city for vibrancy, aliveness, culture, and quality of life.

I pay well and expect  a high quality of work and I get it.    

Not a lot, but it's a great place for high-quality leads.Send direct mail to expireds and cold call them.Network.If you're free on the weekends, then ask other agents if you could have an open house on their houses. 

Great prices and quality.

I would say the area is fairly shady (referring to the amount of sunlight,  not the quality of people that live there).

I heard duplexes in these cities  like Kansas and Indianapolis, tend to give landlords more trouble than SFH, because of the quality of the tenant you usually get for these properties in these cities, and for the price point you mentioned I believe that might be a possibility of buying two SFH (2 x 45K) with almost the same out-of-pocket cash.

We will launch the VR forum as soon as we have somewhere in the ballpark of perhaps 50 high quality forum threads that our users have identified as appropriate to be moved to the Vacation Rental Forum!  

My primary goal is to not have a giant empire but to grow a quality, ethical business the right way while of course earning an income/profit in the process.

Choosing a market, deciding a property type...all those things depend on budget, your goals (do you want higher cash flow or better appreciation potential and quality, etc.?)

The problems that arise from wholesale transactions have more to do with the diligence performed by the wholesaler and the quality of the contracts.