People like central air, but they tend to be in newer homes.

While it is true that $100 per/door is a relatively widespread rule-of-thumb that investors tend to follow when obtaining rental properties, it is by NO means a limitation.

Follow up question - what category of motivated seller do you tend to find D4D brings in the most leads?

I don't know why but we tend to like the Urban Sprawl kinda places.

Each person tends to develop his/her own style.

I also tend to go to local plumbing supply houses (for better quality items) if I am doing plumbing work, Electrical supply house if I have to do electrical work, or lumber yard for better quality products.I will use online or local cabinet supply shops, have never used HD or Lowes for kitchens.

An additional possibly more important factor besides interest rate (which tends to be higher for an investment property) is call risk for the mortgage in the event of a market downturn. 

At that point, my thinking was that the home would be a great rental as  inventory in the area tends to be very limited.Short version of the situation is that the subdivision's HOA allows for only single family owner occupants. 

And remember, things tend only to get more expensive over time. 

The warm belt states experiencing high growth from baby boomers retiring and migrating out of the cold belt states have plenty of retail tenants small and large with expansion plans ready to go in those spaces.Typical time in most warm belt states to re-tenant and get rent coming in to dark STNL could be anywhere from 3 months to 1 year depending on box size, location, mom and pop versus regional and national tenants who tend to move slower and be more methodical.We are not moving to a society where people sit at the computer all week long and stay in a house and drop ship 50 packages by drones.