My intent was to purely wholesale with no money (assignment) but I have learned with short sales I will need transactional funding, which I think I may be able to secure.

No conventional lender makes a pure purchase money loan without proof of funds, it's a legal requirement under several regulatory angles, money laundering, drug money or illegal activities etc. with funds needing to be verified as to the source of funds or held for more than 90 days.

Quote from @Lawrence Briggs:  That's the face of pure joy.

Am I making a bet purely on some gut feeling I have that this area will appreciate substantially?

Now - this is a house hack, and as such it shouldn't be evaluated as a pure investment.

Indeed I live in NY currently (salary) and dipped my toe into FL purely based on data - the price to rent ratio beats anything in the Northeast as you know.

@Brandon Goris If the OP can generate that sort of income, they can likely drive a solid 8% ish return on invested capital purely from operations.  

If you are doing a pure rental property investment where you will not live there it's going to be 25% down.

Maybe sell a couple and pay off all loans so you have 100% pure cash flow. 

If you are purely looking at cost per sq.ft. modular doesn't make sense.