Some hotels actually have a condo like structure, where people can own the units, but perhaps are limited on their personal use to only a certain amount of the year - the rest of the year it is in the rental pool managed by the hotel.If numerous room owners stopped paying their bills, you could get tax liens on numerous separately owned units.Hotels are a tough business, an issue I also see come up with them often is that they require refreshes, expensive and relatively often - at least once every 10 years, if not more often. 

It is a safety issue. 

If that is the case, can you start to buy places that are built in the mid-90s to stay away from those big issues?

Any issues that you've experienced so far?

Multi-family properties many times provide a better return per square foot than single family, which would be to your advantage as well.As long as you're mindful of the reinvestment requirements and purchase at least as much as you sold and use all of the proceeds, you shouldn't have any issues with this strategy.

This plays into the affordability issues for tenants by allowing them to live in nicer neighborhoods for less money, yet I get monthly revenue comparable to short-term rentals.I have also shifted my focus to buying better.

There’s a number of issues to go through.

For higher-end properties in Cincinnati, everyone seems to claim they can handle it, but then there are performance issues. 

the issue is that HELOC money is expensive money. 

In my state the standard contract used by realtors addresses this issue by allowing the agent to check a box specifically to limit the seller to keeping the EMD as opposed to going after "liquidated damages" like that.