I'm trying to stay on the west side of the river.

Known  Potential Black Swan events, numerous.  

If this is your first real estate purchase I would stay away from auctions, there's too much risk involved especially with where price points are in your market.

We have 3 long term rentals now and we can’t decide if it would be a better investment to go short term or stay long term. 

I know this sounds slightly counter intuitive, but stay with me.

I wanted to stay in the same county that I grew up in.

However, I was lucky enough to be put in contact with our area hospital's HR Recruiter who has had a few of their corporate employees stay at our properties.

With 40k cash, a wife that loves your current home, and 2 kids, stay put unless you can find a compelling reason to convince your wife to do another live in flip or live in a 2-4 unit house hack.

If you prefer to stay local and build equity, house hacking a duplex or triplex in Fort Lauderdale could work, especially if you can add an STR component to boost income.

Should we stay away or is there reason to consider?