In Houston, I stay away from homes that have flooded as they are most likely in a flood zone and you'll have the extra expense of flood insurance.   

Once the tenants in place, you have to worry about: late rent, non-payment of rent, eviction, lease violations like extra people or an unauthorized animal, tenant wants to break the lease, tenant abandons the property, tenant wants to renew the lease for another year, tenant wants to convert to a month-to-month lease, etc.It's an on-going process.

However, might not fund much of a deal, but extra money never hurts.

They were busy but the process was unnecessarily dragged out an extra 30 days.

They were busy but the process was unnecessarily dragged out an extra 30 days.

He lives at home so I can't move in with him, and I live too far from his work.I'm trying to decide if I should take a leap and buy a mountain/lake property for under $400k first to try and start earning extra money while I can take the risk with my cost of living so low.

Do you want/need the extra $100/month this provides or are you happy that its basically cash flow neutral and you can do a long term hold and make your return from appreciation and mortgage pay down?   

They pay an additional $300 more a month now, but they love the extra space.

I would then repeat with the second unit (rent extra bedrooms and rehab in place).  

If you're local and you have the extra time and want to save money, then you could do it yourself.