In my opinion @Brodyn Beauchat you should only be investing in areas with a growing population and with house prices over 90k.

CURB APPEAL: I plan to do a little here but it does back up to some prairie preservation land which is very beautifulGROWING AREA: populating and job growth has been fairly steady.

For those who think Austin is cooling off.....think again.  11th largest city in the nation that is expected to double in population in the next 15-20 years appears to be acting as expected. 

Your market is much smaller than the one I am looking at (population 90k) however exact same issue, so its all relative.

Population growth, 2.

My strategy so far has been looking up counties with the fastest growing populations, best schools, and also checking Listsource.com for zip codes with recently sold Absentee owned properties (trick I learned from Anson Young's Finding and Funding Great Deals).

That which concerns us is that it is sparsely populated.  

I am a born and raised local of the area which is rare due to our high military population.

Looking at different markets where property prices are lower, and there is potential for cash flow is risky when the population is under 5000.  

If I'm depreciating my vehicle from driving clients all over the place, I should be tracking my miles driven and should be able to populate an accurate number, right?