BP Newbie interested in Multi-family rentals

[David Antunes]

I'm a new member here and I'm currently in the knowledge accumulation phase. I live in NYC and I'm interested in relocating to a (relatively) smaller city, purchasing a multi-family property to fix up, move into one unit, and house-hack the other(s). Properties within my realistic budget would be in the $500-600k range or less.

Portland, OR is one of the cities I'm interested in, but after looking for Multi-family properties on Trulia, Zillow, the MLS, I haven't found anything that comes close to passing the 1% test.

An example of typical numbers I've seen have been $500k for a multi-family unit in areas where 2 bd units rent for ~2k. With those numbers, even if I'm paying full price for my unit and renting another for $2k, the Rent to Cost ratio comes out to .08%. That number doesn't account for renovation costs.

This has led me to a few questions:

1) Am I just not looking in the right place / hard enough? Are there better deals available that might be found if I were looking on the street, through an agent, or direct mailing owners?

2) Is finding a 2% Rent to Cost  property in the PDX market a pipe dream? I've seen people make the argument that expecting to find rental properties that pass the 1-2% tests in larger markets is often unrealistic. Would Cash over Cash or the 50% rule be better metrics to evaluate with?

3) Is the current PDX market just not great for cash flow rentals, and perhaps better suited for Flipping?

I apologize in advance for the novel of a question. Thank you!