We traded getting into the market (with reasonable rents) for higher cap expenses than I perhaps anticipated, haha.Besides looking at the age of major components of the house, is there a better way to estimate cap expenses? 

There probably is not one set number because it will depend on the age of a property, the age of the system components, if there are maintenance records available for the properties you will be looking at and other factors. 

If you do decide to invest out of state pick the market that is most aligned with your investment goals.

There are annual contribution limits to both a Traditional and Roth IRA.Furthermore, a traditional IRA can have both a deductible / non-deductible component(You would need to keep track of your basis in the non-deductible component).I personally do not like to invest directly in real estate through a retirement account.The issues you will potentially have are1) If you have to have excess funds within the retirement account for items such as improvements, tenant turnovers.

Of course, that's an emotional component, which I would just see as a 'math problem' now.Also, the homes were cheaply built and required capex to sell at year 10. 

@Nghi LeI disagree with @Ashish Acharya   The 15.3% self-emmployment income tax has two components:  12.4% for the FICA component, and, 2.9% for the Medicare component.  

I think there can be some good opportunities there, I just felt they ultimately didn’t align with my goals at this time.

We are investing in buy and hold properties in another state and intend to continue to do so pretty much for as long as possible so this aligns with what we're doing.

If your component breaks, you will be able to improvise a repair with commonly sold materials.

Only now to find out when having the fairly new (2018) septic system looked at because there were apparently components installed incorrectly, that the system is underrated.The previous owners installed the system under an approved permit by the county for a 3 bedroom SFH of the same square footage.