All of my long term rentals are managed by a company; I have one property in my hometown and 3 properties OOS. 

@Sebastian SoveroThere are 3 main parts to a seller financing deal: down payment, interest rate, and price (4th would be the term).

Passive income is something talked about, but the majority of real estate investing is far from passive and what is called passive has payments for the passivity (management).Your why is strong, to provide generational wealth for your family and likely achieve time freedom long-term, that's awesome.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, you will want to make sure code allows a short-term rental wherever you are buying.

I would stay away from long term contracts and pay by the month to start if you are using a service and then after you have real world experience with it, you can sign on for a year for the discount.

In terms of your comment "a lot of investors you may be competing with are goign to break even or even have negative cash flow initially". 

Maybe to your "extensive" waiting list of clients?

There’s a lot of misinformation out there that is presented as knowledge.One can do a reverse exchange where one buys the new property first and then sells the original property after - all via a 1031 process. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/reverse-exchange.aspReverse exchanges do exist and they are “legal”. 

REO so negotiating was limited to bank terms.

Something to keep in mind when you are looking for stabilized loan options for the long term.