Are all 4 units metered for gas and electric separately or on master meter? 

Buy a 3/2 (if possible), live in the master, rent out the other 2 rooms to friends.

I'm looking at a duplex opportunity that says "Corporate tenant, PadSplit has a low-risk 2-year master lease that protects your investment and alleviates landlord headaches

After that, I got a large dog crate and set it up in the master walk-in closet. 

There are a number of meetups in Sacramento and we have been coordinating the dates among hosts so that there is no overlap - I run the West Sacramento Meetup that @Ben Howard mentioned (we gather every 4th Tuesday of the month).Here is a list of meetups that we're in collaboration with (they are all based on an abundance mindset that we have here on BP)- 1st Tuesday - REI Connect @ Roseville Meetup (reach out to @Nicole Masters)- 3rd Tuesday - Investor Mixer @ Crawdads on the River- 3rd Thursday - Folsom Out of Bounds (dates may shift a bit)- 3rd or 4th Wednesday - Real Estate Round Table (CH Cafe & Grill) - they recently relaunched and stabilizing the schedule- 4th Tuesday - West Sacramento Real Estate MeetupI'm working on putting together an easy to access list that Sacramento investors can refer to.

My background is in Social Work, with a Master's degree.

"Master Group", "Winners Circle", or whatever - where they will promise to hold your hand, find you deals, find you money, find you whatever you need - all for the low low price of (in my case) $45,000 for a 2 year membership.  

Acquisition is the root of real estate investing - if you can master the systems and processes around that you will have a skill that can be translated to bigger and bigger deals.I'd advise against developing on your own at first - if you find a partner that is knowledgable then go for it.Syndications can be great, they also can be horrible.

Once you can figure out how to buy your second property, then you've started beginning to master scale.But I have a questions, you said:"Our end goal is to build wealth over the next several years and leverage that wealth to buy multifamily commercial properties!"

Operating an LTR is quite different from managing a short-term rental , so I'd recommend focusing on mastering one strategy before expanding your portfolio.