If zoning is a challenge, it could still be a really attractive mid-term rental and there's some other creative things we could do to make it as attractive as possible to the investor population here.

Are you thinking of more cold, warm, or mid-weather climates?

As far as purchasing a new home as investment, you are allowed to rent that house as Longer Term whole house, Rent By The Room (usually called SRO for Single Room Occupancy, CoLiving, or PadSplit model), Mid Term (30+ day rentals), or Short Term rentals. 

Depends they have expanding zoning regulations but mostly for ADU's and then its complex - same across most of the mid-shenandoah. 

welcome to bp, your sentiment around leverage is 100% correct, and I'd challenge you to follow your own advice and use that leverage to put as little as possible into the real estate rather than the coveted "pay cash for it" or while one can pay cash, utilizing your w2 to refinance is a unique skill and ability you can have.house hacking in the mid west is where its at for sure.

@Joseph Hummel if there was a heat minimum, would that make every building from the Mid Atlantic all the way down south in some kind of violation if their buildings have no AC?

You want mid range houses; nothing too expensive to sell easily.

Devin my lending business has a very Narrow niche our specialty is the 200k under BRRR that all these BP members want for rentals in the mid west.. we put them into title and let them refi or flip..

So for folks to fork over 40k on a rental house I dont get that. to me its big time FOMO especially in SW FLA were there are literally hundreds of thousands of vacant parcels that can be bought on any day.In early to mid 2022s, the FOMO was high.

Please advise on good constructor in mid ColumbusNeed full rehab for ~1300 SQFT