Currently, I’m in full research and networking mode—learning, looking to connect with local investors, and exploring my first investment.

As an investor your ratios won't look good to the traditional lenders.

I work with Property Management in Houston but can recommend some great networking/educational events for you :) Check out Space City REI - there's monthly meetups with an educational speaker relating to real estate investing and there are plenty of Investors looking for Wholesalers out there! 

Given you and your investor both have experience in different areas, I’d say keep a flexible approach and compare city requirements before putting too much money down.

Given that I'm a new investor the loan/mortgage are in my name.

As a SFR investor for over 15 years I have been wrestling with this question in the past, because it feels like you should upgrade to "bigger".I know for sure that I would not enjoy the ownership experience that comes with a small 4F, because in Milwaukee that typically also means lower income tenants. 

He has helped many real estate investors and really understands the niches in these areas for real estate investments.

Most of our out of state investors in Pittsburgh find success depending on their expectations.

Quote from @Kathy Grossart: Can a non-accredited investor in an already established SDIRA, within a 506(b) multi-family syndication, do a 1031 exchange to another syndicated property (with same operators), if the new 506(c) offering required investors to be accredited, and the investor is not? 

At the same time, many hosts and investors jumped into STRs during this same time period which created an excess of supply in many travel destinations that wound up saturating those markets.