After consulting my realtor I discovered the ARV would only be about $60,000 and that it was going to take about 10 years to get my money back and likely 10 years to get the value of the property up consistent with what I had put into it.

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They usually need months of follow-up before they're ready to pull the trigger.4) If you can afford it, online ads can help find motivated sellers, but they're pricey.

It lacks a little in the property accounting side though, so if you end up growing your portfolio, it might be more useful to use software with additional features such as bank feed integration, advanced tax reporting, and receipt scanning. 

There are people still moving to TN, which will continue to push pricing up, and while most of the country has seen rents either flatten or go down, most of these markets have done pretty good.Problem is in the short term it may  cause an affordability problem, especially in the smaller markets that don't have enough building.

Also in the meantime they recommend stopping mail to the mailbox, holding at post office, and manually picking it up (all of which I had to do once when I lost the mail key).

Pace Morby is the guy i look up to the most when it comes to creative financing, and i was wondering if i could meet up, or hop on the phone with somebody who knows the game pretty well to grab some advice. 

ITs going to depend on a lot of factors but just jumping into STR "around the country" (i.e. potentially very far from yourself) is going to be challenging - property management fees are going to eat up a lot and its hard to cash flow as it is with current rates/prices.Most people would start with LTRs as its generally good for the "first investment" to be more of a learning experience and chalking up a lot of mistakes - so keeping $ amounts low, leverage conservative and the investment as "vanilla" as possible is generally good advice

When people express interest (no pun intended), you should have a package prepared to share out (not right away necessarily - but after you've entertained the topic at a high level) that includes your project experience (past flips) and schedule of real estate (rentals) as well as settlement statements that can back up your purchase price and exit.

Yes - I realize the fall and holidays are busier for STRs in this area, and January and February are not near as fruitful, but March and beyond are looking very strong and we should see similar returns.