If you believe the valuation by the appraisal district is to high file a protest and contact a Realtor to get some accurate comps of recent sales.

The peak rental season in this part of the country is essentially March through September.  

Pick 2 or 3 areas...I do it be school district and narrowed my initial focus even further to specific elementary school feeder areas.  

Paying down debt is essentially the same % as investing that money over time.Making this up, lets create a real world scenario.

At that point, the additional mortgage payment (provided you have positive cash flow), essentially gets wiped out from your DTI ratio.

Things such as crime rate, how many rentals, average rent, school district quality, unemployment rate, are people moving to the neighborhood or leaving, do property owners in the neighborhood keep up their properties, etc.A good place to start for some of the information that you can't get by just driving the streets is www.city-data.com.

I essentially want to make enough money where I can purchase property with cash, but I feel it will be a while to get the cash flow from current properties.  

I would then personally estimate the costs and profits and what their maximum purchase price is, etc.....essentially do everything for them haha but really if you ever plan on getting into the game yourself, it will be great practice. 

There are essentially four ways that investment properties make money...Cash Flow, Appreciation, Equity Pay-Down and tax savings (depreciation and in your case, loss from the negative cash flow).  

Essentially what you did in order to purchase the franchise using the C-corp funded by your 401k.