Look at their marketing strategy.

Please share your thoughts or experiences... 

Here in Chicago (Illinois) you can only wholesale (market for sale) one property per year without having your real estate license.

Maybe you need to fork over a few thousand to run a market study in the zip codes you really like?

of course you have to handle the inquiries… but it’s pretty easy… we’ve done it multiple times.Your 6% appreciation approximation is less than the 7% average return the stock market  does long term - and lately it has been blowing that figure away - though as they say - past performance doesn’t equal future performance. 

What markets are you looking at for STRs?

It has been 6 months or so, and I want to get them on a lease, and adjust the rent for market conditions.They currently pay $1,500/month, market for this small house is $2,200 or more

The short term rental market in our area has been doing really well over the past year and we feel this property is a destination unto itself.

So I looked at some local markets like Sacramento where I'm from and familiar with the neighborhoods but the cashflow would be so negative that I'd be paying out of pocket every month.Now I'm more inclined to buy a single family in KC as it seems the rates won't drop anytime soon so would like to get in the investment game sooner than later and hope for a rate drop in few years to refinance.I have been looking on Zillow, and recently connected to an agent to run numbers and seems I could make about $100-$300 after mortgage payment and insurance.

I know the process of touring houses, getting home inspection, researching market rents, looking for tenants, screening tenants, etc takes up a lot of time.