If the tenant refuses entry, you can charge them the trip fee for wasting your time.

Since you are not local, who goes to the unit to allow entry for repair work/appraisers/etc?

I think any 'entry level' home within 20-30 min of a major downtown is great.

I hear ya - my business partner and I were both living in California when we first started investing in real estate and had much the same thought as you (higher cost of entry where we were living) and started looking out-of-state.I'll also say that places like CA and NY don't tend to have the most landlord-friendly laws, which shouldn't necessarily be your only decision point, but could certainly be a factor in your choice of where to invest.All that being said, we decided to start investing in Dayton, OH and have had pretty good luck up there so far! 

Our original plan was to house hack with MFH’s using a FHA loan for low cost entry into higher equity plays.

One of the reasons I'm considering Memphis is low cost to entry.

Maybe total price is an obstacle.Can you split into two parcels to have a lower entry point?

My backyard is still investable, it's just a higher barrier to entry. 

He also lives in AZ but found the St Louis market to have good rentals on SFR rentals and the barrier to entry is much lower.

The property has 10 rooms (w/ 5 exterior entry like a motel and 5x interior entry like an inn).