I'd love to answer any questions you might have, we wan to be as transparent as possible! 

Ultimately I'd like to at least do a house hack per year and supplement it with some other properties along the way

Quote from @Jaime Pinedo: I'm located near Dallas and I'm ready to start my REI investment journey, preferably starting If you're in Roanoke, I'd start there....and move out around the West/North/East of you.Town is growing your way. 

I’d keep searching until you find that golden opportunity at 15-20% COC from cash flow alone.

I can imagine a complicated mechanism that would produce an arguably valid 1031 strategy...but it almost certainly would create more problems than it solves.  

I’d imagine they’re about the same. 

I did not include the cost to sell in this scenario because in this scenario we are imagining holding the property for longer than 5 years. 2.

i'm in hopedale MA. i use rentredi for tenant payments. no complaints, simple, i like it. a BANK that also offers rent collection seems over the top to me. i'd rather keep using my small local bank. i also don't keep security deposits because the laws in MA re: how they can be used are so insane that i'd rather just not deal with it. 

However they are conflicting, so I'd like a) to get more opinions on this specific area, and b) get some feedback on what other data points I should be looking at.

@Nate Powley  Hi Nate,  I'd suggest the good 'deals' in UT market left the station several years ago, but that would not be helpful.