As a property manager who has been around a lot of construction and hundreds or thousands of home inspections over the years, the buyer is generally pretty prepared for the home inspection.Home Inspectors go deeper into almost every area and are worth their money in the end, almost every time.Buyers often look at houses online, and many times, I go to the property for them to provide what I refer to as "The Rest of the Story."

I second what Jonathan Greene is saying here—turnkey is probably best bet given your constraints.

We only have 58 units w/others under construction getting completed while I am on leave.  

If it’s not new built construction look at the taxes going back several years.

Here in SoCal I am very high on Chula Vista, Bonita and SDSU in general especially with the conventional center under construction.

TV developers continue to build new construction, and many folks bought in the market to rent out before retiring in the last 18 months. 

Your best bet is to invest in growing areas that are landlord friendly and where you can either connect with or build a good team yourself- realtor, property managment, contractors, etc. 

Hey @Jon Pflueger - your best bet will be to retain an architect, they typically have a good understanding of what's feasible and not in a specific zoning/area + will know how to handle variance permissions and etc. 

It has been mentioned above but your best bet is to separate the SFR and the 8 unit into two separate transactions.

It's hard to say for sure without knowing your market numbers, but I would bet you if you looked at a 10 year projection, you will probably have a better ROI with the equity in 2 houses as opposed to the equity and cash flow with one.