The supply is tight still regardless of what anyone says due to net migration into the city.

To get a full picture of what’s going on  there’s a lot of junk and heavy furniture leftover from the previous tenants, my husband and I decided to work on the downstairs apt due to more immediate renovation and repair needs.

. :) Veterans are a small minority, the market finding it's supply-and-demand rent-to-price ratio equilibrium is finding that equilibrium at price points wherein the overwhelming majority are putting 20% or 25% down, so if you're putting 0% down and paying that same purchase price, you may have a hard time of the cashflow game (until/unless several years have passed, not necessarily just the minimum 12 months of personal owner occupancy).

With my local market down to .9 months supply for houses under 250k I'm considering buying out of state.What tips/suggestions do other investors have in this regard?

There is virtually no supply in the market and it would sell fast. 

More of his crew were sneaking in the property at night and pilfering paint and other supplies.

(Larger developers who could afford the development are instead chasing larger deals)I thought of an idea to help increase supply and share the opportunities with smaller investors everywhere.

The MLS price winds up bid up to where it makes sense for the overwhelming majority putting 25% down in a Fannie loan, that's where our Econ 101 "supply and demand curves" meet in the middle on the fictional perfectly efficient open market that they pretend exists in Econ 101 (these podcast guests probably paid the MLS price for their first few properties, but haven't paid the MLS price for the last bunch of properties).All things in life have self-selection bias. :)

The growth of ISU hasn't been as significant as what was projected, so there has been a bunch of new housing, which I think has been more challenging to fill due to the lack of growth and increased housing (i.e. more supply but less demand).I did recently talk to someone who works as a property manager in Ames and she said that they were raising rent costs again, but that isn't convincing enough for me.I live in Ames and work in Ames but am investing in the Des Moines area just because I think you can have a greater profit margin than what you can find in Ames.Real estate investors continue to buy in Ames and they will make money doing so, but I just think there is more money to be made in the DSM area unless you are wanting to buy at a much larger scale (like apartment complexes).Let me know if I can help in any way!

Furniture and boxes piled up 4' high, narrow aisles through each of the rooms that you can walk through, just barely.