Risk & Due Diligence – Ensure the deal has strong equity, a solid exit strategy, and an experienced investor before funding.

This seems like a no-brainer to me and fits well into a vertical integration strategy (I'm also thinking about managing other people's rentals as even more vertical integration (aka side money).  

@Collin Hays@Jon Martini agree that tax considerations shouldn't, by themselves, drive business strategy. 

While living in a high-cost area can present challenges, it also opens doors to creative strategies, like investing out of state or leveraging partnerships.

There are multiple strategies to take advantage of opportunities during an expansion.  

I would suggest having 3 different strategies. 

We believe that you set your strategy early on during acquisition, and as such, were primarily motivated by cash-on-cash returns and the strategy, with all of its pitfalls, did result in very reasonable IRR over the many years we have held.   

I was wondering if most wholesalers have stopped using direct mail and just moved to google/facebook to find deals?

With this in mind, I recommend exploring other investment strategies that may provide better cash flow and ROI.

I recommend getting a few quotes and choosing one that is right for your financing strategy. if you are trying to get fix and flip money there is a wide disparity in rates and charges.