@Cade Jones-PearsonAs a real estate investor, your main choices in avenues to take is either, flip, rent or BRRR.

What it really means is you choose investments rather than having the account managed by an advisor or limited to a choice of 4-10 funds.What you are likely seeing is "you choose which stocks".A truly self-directed plan as often discussed here on BiggerPockets means not only that you choose, but also that the plan is configured for investing in anything the IRS rules allow. 

If I had a choice of being on Municipal or well and septic, I will take well and septic any day, the Well is little maintenance and no bill and with exceptions, generally you may replace a pump and piping every 50 years or so unless lightning whacks the pump, still a pretty cheap fix,  septics, in WI require pumping and inspection every 3 years ($150-$300) and if maintained will last 20-50+ years and depending where you are and soil type replacement would be $2,500 to $20,000 I can get a 1000 gal (3 bedroom) system replaced up north in sand country for $2500, in clay its more as often you need a mound.

Hi BP,So I'm trying to narrow down my top 5 market choices for buy and hold rentals and am having a tough time walking the line between scalability and stability.

It is a personal choice for realtors as to what type of people they want to work with.  

The first was 3 states away so I has no choice. 

But once you have it, there's no choice but to make it right.

It does provide many benefits, but only by talking to a client can you learn enough information to make a proper choice.

Early on when I started investing I would do 90% of the work myself. it was a great choice. 

Fast forward to 2014 I'd done well over the years with my day job and with the cash I'd decided that I'd rather eliminate my mortgage payment (poor choice in retrospect but didn't really know any better at the time).