Purchase Price is $320k, combined rent is $3,170, assuming 8% vacancy, 5% capex, and $50/month for maintenance Managing the property myself.

SoCal alone has more housing value than Texas and Florida combined.

If you are willing to do some work and earn your sweat equity, you can combine renting out rooms with a cosmetic live-in flip to take advantage of the appreciation we usually see in this market.Good luck!

I'm having trouble combining the effects of inflation that has already occurred vs what your anticipation for the future is.Thanks in advance!

A more relevant marker would be monthly cash flow.  1 door fully paid off could potentially make more than 5 doors combined with high LTVs.   

It requires no MI and is available at up to a $650 loan amount (prior to COVID we could go up to $850k on this loan).The other program is a second mortgage that we can combine with either a jumbo or conforming first mortgage for aggregate financing of 90%. 

You combine this with large IRA and HSA  and health care premiums and my tax payment is a fraction of what it once was.This is great for tax but now we are ready to buy a new home and even though we have strong cash flow, excellent reserves/credit - tax returns are not showing the profit. 

Houston's cost of living combined with opportunities to invest are incomparable to most Metros, in my opinion.

I would specifically look for that combination of good rents and appreciation in the long run.I would not take more debt in your situation, and would not invest more money in the same place where you are based, since you said the price of your property decreased.Also, take into account that at this moment prices are very high, real estate prices (taken as an overall picture) have been climbing since 2012, so in my opinion is a good moment to sell but a very bad moment to buy property. 

You are in a position to handle the negative cash flow so that is not a concern.As you have likely already figured out, STRs have much higher operating costs (with PM) or take much more time (no PM), or a combination of the two, than LTRs.