Strictly from that perspective, you're probably better off in an area with more inventory so that your pricing power is greater and competition is lower. 

If you are renting in these neighborhoods, set some strict screening requirements and set house rules to establish what your household will be like.

I cannot speak for all private lenders, but just my experience and the knowledge of other private lenders like me lending out their own capital.First, if you have a ton of equity in a property that is strictly non-owner occupied, you may be able to do whats called cross collateralize this property with another acquisition, using both properties as collateral for one loan. 

Other areas have a more strict enforcement. 

I love this quote from the article"Many landlords lost money due to eviction moratoriums during COVID, and now they are more strict with tenant qualifications"Politicians fail to realize that when they enact legislation there are unintended consequences. 

It might help to think of it as the discount rate where the investment breaks even or where the present value of future cash flows equal the all cash outflows within the period being examined.You of course always want the IRR to be higher than what the cost of funds or discount rate is.There are of course problems with the IRR-- the multiple IRR problem, accounting for inflation issue and its use in evaluating single period investments, but that's stretching the discussion beyond your initial inquiry.On some investments the concern is on the magnitude of the investment in terms of what wealth is being created for investors and in that case the Net Present value might help or be more relevant.The capitalization rate or cap rate, is mostly strictly utilized in evaluating income real estate investments whereas the IRR and NPV are concepts that apply to various types of financial investments not just real estate. 

I remember thinking short term would be great there.Arizona seemed a little more strict on septic tank issues so I would 100% have that inspected so you can include in yiur scope of work.

I am currently debating between rentcheckcorp and tenantverificationservice (TVS).The verification process to setup TVS membership seems to be very strict, we're operating remotely, we don't have a physical office, seems with the options in TVS, we could not get full credit report.The process for rentcheckcorp seems to be easier, but I am not sure which provides better credit check service.

So it varies a lot, and enforcement depends on how strict the town is and the personnel  they have available for doing all the work.

or strictly comparable properties?