The benefit to investing out of state, is that it forces you to develop the systems and the mindset from day one that you are not going to be physically going to these properties and fixing things, you'll be training yourself in "leadership" type tasks and systems and that will make it easier in my mind to scale. 

With that foreign entity filing, you are often required to have a resident agent within that state unless you have a physical office address or chose to use your personal residence, which I wouldn't recommend.  

Since we, personally/physically, won’t be there, could we pay less in rent?

Close proximity to Portland, Oregon, without any of the short term rental restrictions (must live in it 270 days of the year and obtain a STR permit).

I think Florida would be a good fit because of the beautiful weather and proximity to Colombia, where my parents are originally from.

Anything with close proximity neighbors also not as good in my market!

Proximity to the hospital and the purchase price How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

They physically inspect it and would make that determination, regardless of what you think.

Oh rehab... the other investor and I were thinking a total of 75k in physical rehab to both homes, 80k for the installation of a beautiful pool area, and about 50k for the interior design on the homes.To anyone who is like WOW those are big numbers for this STR, we want to present a boutique-style stay and experience, and it's two homes.

I want to nip this in the bud before it escalates to anything physical.