The east side has a lower median income, and the west side is more affluent.

This may seem like a naive/juvenile question to someone of experience, and I'm new so here it goes.What positive/negative sides are there to having a lender who isn't local to the area I'm looking to purchase?

If you were bullish on the area and planned on having 3 or 4, then management would make sense, but buying a first property far away only to have some random company manage it, and add on MTR which is not as complicated as STR, but still more uptake is a tall order.

We are really moving and shaking these days. 

We buy these types of notes.

I'm new to the real estate profession and looking to observe, learn, and get to work.

If someone new got into the industry as a part time agent,  what would you focus on?

Also you want to look at the competition. 

Will it match the statement amount up with the actual credit transaction for the bank account attached to Stessa?

Copper is expensive, you want to use pex (and make sure they don't buy the cheap stuff from the big box store).