I've seen protocols for houses that are empty and houses that are vacant and it's a huge difference in both scope and cost.

I really do think "house hacking" - people buying their first home and living in one unit renting the other 1-3 is here to stay and will become a bigger and bigger trend in the next few years - should push up values medium/long-term in the niche

Absolutely get your boots in the house....

We have flipped a dozen single family houses in the past but want to develop a rental portfolio.

Thanks An FHA loan is 3.5% down and you need to live in the house for at least 1 year.

Here is the backstory: I started buying single-family homes in Milwaukee 15 years ago and pretty soon migrated from C into B neighborhoods ("A" would be 500k plus here) and some of my friends invest in larger MF so I thought that's the next step for me as well and started shopping for a commercial deal maybe about 50 units.The issue is that I did not want to go into the affordable housing space and assets in the quality I liked were so insanely high priced that I would have needed 40% down to meet DSCR guidelines - not to mention rehab cost to bring it up to our standards.

I just saw a off market house for sale in Grass Valley a few days ago.

I consulted a lawyer and a few other investors to see if there was anything else to try to do, but they all told me the only way I was likely to see my money was if they went to try to buy a house one day they would need to pay off my "Lien" before proceeding. 

I have a good income producing job, however, I have a 6 member household with teens, preteens, and children who are eating up my house like Pacman, lol. 

Are you buying to house hack or rent out both sides.There are so many personal questions to answer, before you begin analyzing deals.Factors such as jobs, population, tenant laws, median income, affodability, crime, schools are all metrics to considerGood Luck!