They come, but they go faster. 

You have 100k and can afford it but you might get in over 50k for a deal, that's half your bankroll. 

The building time was much faster!

@Grayson Lynum Regarding Modular, I have gone down that rabbit hole several times, and what I found it, they are not cheaper, just faster, and they look like a modular, due to the transportation limitations, the rectangle box or Prow front on mods tend to have a stigma to buyers, also many of the finishes are very low end. if you site built a very basic rectangle with the same cheap finishes most mods come with, you will be financially better off. and they are not faster, typically from order to occupancy is 6-9 months, I did my last spec in 7 mo. its just not as much work on site, the time is waiting for the factory to get to your build. good luck!

I would suggest trying for a single family, your demographic of renters are better, values rise faster and you will have a more diverse renter pool. 

So I trade risk related to out-of-state investment, with risk to hold huge leverage in over-bloated market in tenet friendly state, but I am losing opportunity to build a skill-set of out-of-state investing which will help me to scale faster and be flexible in the future.If we buy cheaper house but further from the city, we will spend a lot more time in the commute(3 days in the office mandate), in this case we will trade time(commute) for money(affordability) it makes it not an investment, but another work.

The goal of real estate investing is financial freedom.Financial freedom requires a rental income that:Increases faster than inflation: Unless rents increase faster than inflation, your true (inflation-adjusted) income will continuously decline, and your time off the daily worker treadmill will be short.

#3 is the individual credible i.e. have they done what I want to do or have a unique perspective that will help me get to #1 faster?

To pay off the mortgage faster, you can put extra money towards the principal amount to lower the interest and increase the ownership of the property.

Reasonable rent control (such as AB1482) is great for professional managed units because market rents will rise faster than they would have otherwise and their rents are already near market rate.