What remains tough is the regulatory environment.

As long as you understand how lead poisonings occur and you take steps to reduce potential lead hazards, you take a lot of the risk out of lead paint and create a safer environment for children. 

However, now we find ourselves in a very unique environment.

When a newbie starts out with saying they are looking for a mentor that person has created an environment where he subjected himself to having an unscrupulous and experienced investor take him under his arm, get him involved with real estate investing that benefits his mentor's agenda and the newbie gets ripped off.

You want a stable economic environment, and small towns may be too dependent on a single company or commodity.

Starting in this environment?

Once you have educated yourself it is then about staying up to date on market metrics, and real estate environment, and zeroing in on three forms of diversity (Sponsor, geography, and asset class) across your portfolio. 

Banks and conventional lenders can likely offer higher leverage and better terms, but are likely being very cautious in this environment, especially about an emerging and economy-dependent asset class like STRs, so reliability and certainty of close with them will be much lower

The neighbors' utilities are generally twice theirs -- of course, I can't account for personal settings.Now, with the recent inflationary environment, its helping keep my tenants more financial secure, which means they can pay me.This was a thread at least a year ago (fi you can find out) that many jumped in saying similar. 

Then it is beyond me why you would consider selling a high appreciation, positive cash flow, reduced property tax So Cal to potential purchase a higher risk OOS property that would likely be lucky to make a few hundred dollars a month per unit in this high rate environment.