Focus on identifying promising neighborhoods in the north or east bay by leveraging your husband’s contractor network, local real estate agents, and online deal-finding platforms.

Fortunately, I was thinning my herd back in I think 2014 or so by getting rid of a few (experimental) investments in cheaper neighborhoods.

Sounds like you are better off in a high yield savings account like @Dominic Mazzarella mentioned...Just out of curiosity, Nilusha, what Chicago neighborhood are your 2 flats in?

I’ve heard that this neighborhood doesn’t really have any problems from a social worker but outside areas aren’t good. 3/4 units are currently rented at $900 each, renters pay utilities.

Simply what fits your style.

Ideally, my dream is to have a condo in my favorite neighborhood of Chicago (Lake View).I'm 24 years old.

I lost over $20k in opportunity costs while my money was tied up (important lesson learned but wouldn't fit below)Lessons learned?

.), I'd recommend that the residential units fully cash flow the loan as my experience is that mixed use properties are tougher to finance as most lenders tend to prefer one or the other and something in the middle gets more difficult.For example, and granted I don't know anything about the area/neighborhood, I would expect this property (https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/111-NW-Har...) to be easier to finance than the mixed-use property you mentioned. 

Real estate is not the stock market and it's called buy & hold and not buy & sell for a reason.I did sell a few properties about 10 years ago when I learned the hard way that going into cheaper neighborhoods was not the right strategy for me, so that was basically a strategy correction and it was necessary, but also costly both in terms of dollars and time.

Can try to reposition to Class B, but neighborhood may impede these efforts.Vacancy Est: Historically 10%, but 15-20% should be used to also cover tenant nonpayment, eviction costs & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores of 560-620 (approaching 22% probability of default), many blemishes, but should have no evictions in last 2 years.