This is great if you are force appreciating the property and then moving in for a year, and after selling or renting it out. 

The pandemic forced people to work from home and having spaces that worked as offices became important. 

In one building the tenants accumulated so much junk over the course of their tenancy that I was forced to get a 40’ roll off dumpster to get it emptied for a sale.

It forced me to reach out to developers, to engineers dozens of local builders and most important like minded individuals.

I'm sure over time more laws will be created to force the government to give that information in a more timely manner but for now they often obstruct the public by withholding it for a time.

Since the price of a multi unit is double or sometimes 3x the price of a single family home, would it be smart to start off with a SFH and scale up from there or just make the leap into a duplex that I can force some appreciation with minor repairs.

A scenario where you intented to hold but something came up like an unsolicited offer, higher expenses forcing a sale, change in demographics etc.   

Some will be ok in 2nd position and some will not and force you to refinance out the first - but those are options that are probably cheaper than credit cards 

In hindsight, they gave loans to people who were terrible tenants, who weren't going to change just because they now owned a house.In response to the Great Recession, higher lending criteria was forced on the industry by the government.

You should only consider switching when your current software has a significant flaw or lacks features that force you to spend excessive time on workarounds.