It’s great that you’ve already started practicing with NOI and cap rates for evaluating properties, but you're right that smaller properties, like quadplexes or less, are often valued differently.For residential properties with four units or fewer, the market tends to focus more on comparable sales in the area rather than purely relying on income calculations like cap rate.

I have a deal ready, buyer and seller and willing to a compensate for a solid referral, so far the attorneys I've been doing with in New York suck! 

In our area Oxford tends to work with a few agents and investors.

Also, I don't tend to buy linearly. 

AirDNA is a great tool, but I tend to find it slightly underwhelming, like @Wayde Hall mentioned for unique properties.

Self storage can be great, but super easy to replicate down the street, so tends to get overbuilt.How about looking for an existing rv park?

As it has been said, I would tend to lean towards continuing to rent.

Even if someone gives you a referral here, do NOT make the mistake of assuming that the PMC will meet your expectations, just because they met the expectations of the referral source.In our experience, the #1 mistake owners make when selecting a Property Management Company (PMC) is ASSUMING instead of CONFIRMING.It's often a case of not doing enough research, as they don't know what they don't know!

Also referrals from BP members gives credentials In a  way

You could buy a house with siding made of corn cobs if you'd like and they'd finance that (assuming the corn cob siding passed code).The issue is that true log cabins tend to significantly limit buyer pools because they are a bit of a niche product so lenders don't want to finance them at all due to the added risk for resale.