All you have to do is be patient, provide a good product, marekt it well online with great pictures, communicate to prospective tenants about great customer service and the good tenants will come and stay!

If you were to be in the market for a ‘fixer upper’ and getting into the world of REI (thinking ahead to using this as an investment/house hacking down the line) The Good Neighbor Next Door loan is another one that could work for you as a teacher (even if you worked part time and taught even a co-teaching half time schedule to maintain teaching status- I would verify that with a lender and still obtained real estate license (I can try to help you connect with some if you’d like) but for you specifically as some lenders you won’t be able to qualify with a commission based (potential at that for now) income for two years (two years of tax returns) in a lot of cases. https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/housing/sfh/reo/goodn/gnndabot Along these same lines a Homestyle loan product may work for you too, having a decent down payment and great credit score.

If you are considering an prefab ADU, take a look at the prefab options with Back Porch Homes, they are prefab stick built homes and all materials used can be replaced/repaired with products you can find at your favorite hardware store instead of specialty stores like more manufactured homes.

But I would encourage you to go talk to a few local lenders, and see what products they have for your particular strategy.

Once you know an area and your product well and you have some people you trust, you are in a better position to invest from abroad.I have business partners back home for my rentals that watch over things while I'm gone and this works out well.

I realize this is an oldish thread, but also wanted to mention for someone starting out that you can get design firms to do a consult and provide you a pretty comprehensive report with product numbers from nationwide home improvement stores, matching your finishes.The report runs between $175-$250 and can be used as a template for other properties as well.

When I factored in vacancy, repairs & legal expenses, my old single family rentals were lucky to product 5 to 8 percent annually and that was with us handling the management & rentals.

Try to focus mainly on income productive things and hire everything else out.  

There is a national company that has a product called a "Life Changer Loan", and you can get that product on any property you own.

Unfortunately and almost expectedly his company's work quality and level of finished product is not as high as my other two GCs.