As for cost, my nuclear-powered Duke Energy NC Residential Service (RES) costs $0.11661 per kWh.

I personally don't like STR's because they are more of a business than an investment(in my opinion).You didn't mention the amount of hours that you and your spouse work but I would have to assume it be between 1900 to 2200 hours assuming you work 48 weeks and between 40 to 50 hours a week.If you buy a STR and self-manage it, you are added 200-300 hours per year in additional work making your life more stressful and less time to do things that you enjoy.Best of luck. 

From a cost perspective imo it's most cost efficient to find somebody with a lot of evection experience in your area.You might try Stelnick Law in Valencia . 

You could even team up with other investors to split the costs. 

The challenge for present day investors is with elevated mortgage rates and record high housing prices, the carrying costs and incentive to invest now can be restrictive. 

I am looking for peace and tranquility in terms of property management.

Lots of good advice above. 98 percent of wholesalers don't even know how to evaluate rehab costs and have no access to get the true ARV and don't care either way, they are just trying to make the biggest spread instead of finding the best win-win scenario.

We have a few properties outside the state but we live here and for various reasons, want one nearby that we can manage and run ourselves.

This of course can prove to be a costly process!

@Trey Onufrii It's tough to say which one is the better investment without more details, like - cost of each parcel(s), are there utilities close by (especially the Jomax site), what's the terrain like on the hilltops?