It's good practice in making the calculations needed to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on a potential deal.You soon learn that starting off as a Doctor is less advantageous than starting off as a Janitor, because the game presets your income and expenses based on the job title.

Job, family, retirement, location, world, moving,  etc3.  

@Chris Kay beleive you can do DSR loans without a job as they qualify the property, not the borrower.You'd still need 20-25% down though.That's where you have a decision:- Pay down the mortgage, setting yourself up for a future refinance to free up your VA Entitlement.OR- Save up for your next acquisition.Only YOU can make that decision as you have to be comfortable with the increasing debt-load risk and the additional time to manage everything.

There are a lot of investors that want to get started and don't have the money to buy a 20 unit, but want more than a SFR, so they buy a duplex to quad.I only know of a handful of quads in my market that got cut up into 4 condos.  

We don’t plan to leave jobs and live off of the portfolio but have it as a wealth generator aka hedge against future risks

I also reccomend lining up a contractro early, realy early, from what I’ve heard, so you can keep everything on schedule and budget.So now that you’ve tackled what most investors would call a major job, do you see yourself repeating a similar strategy.. or do you feel like branching out into something else?

No, I needed cash flow since I lost my job and invested.

I doubt Cavaozs is on the cut list any time soon if ever. 

.: It sounds like you have a great system down, and I am sure that you can find some handymen that are in the area doing part-time work and then working at a day job that could be pushed into full-time work on your properties.

A strong buyers market indicates sellers price cutting and listings being bought under value which would lead to equity losses.