I can also allow a tenant to grow with me - just moved a family from a two bedroom to a three bedroom apartment.Personally the only reasons I would choose to invest in multiple markets is a) because I wanted an excuse to go somewhere regularly or b) for economic/geographic diversity.I had the advantage that my home market was good.

The other advantage is just having multifamily in general.

I'll add that you should consider house hacking here in Nashville, which is the most tax advantaged way to grow your portfolio.

My piece of advice would be to try to take advantage of as much free education as possible with podcasts, forums like these, YouTube, and other real estate investors.

I'm sure some local banks will do higher especially with a strong relationship but don't think I will fall into that category.

There are multiple strategies to take advantage of opportunities during an expansion.  

Consider using an FHA loan to secure a 1–4 unit property with just 3.5% down and take advantage of tax benefits by living there for at least two years.

With enough knowledge you can make a educated decision on which approach you take.My experience:I personally don't sign up for any program who take you aside during events and try to sell packages that is just blatant sales strategy.Once you sign up there is every attempt to make you sign for their programs for bookkeeping, registered agent, LLC or corp setup fee which have ridiculous even with platinum membership.Basic standard structure they suggest to take advantage of multiple deductions can be easily achieved by proper education or work with a good firm like https://wcginc.com  who is local to you.A umbrella C-crop to manage all other LLC properties and take advantage of many tax deductions that are not available with a llc, its also used to take losses up to 100K as startup expenses and dissolve the entity after few years.Few LLC entities for investing in Real Estate, etc preferably in Wyoming or Nevada ( you can find many companies online who can do this for $150 compared to anderson $1500-$3000) , they will claim they have a secret Operating agreement which is bogus.They certainly try to take advantage of tax loopholes and claim to be smart people, my view they are just taking advantage of numbers as per their own statements.

Also, living in a better area of NB is still much cheaper than the rent in the suburban towns that surround NB which will always be an advantage of owning there.

The only real advantage to using an FHA loan is to offer only 3.5% down payment, which in my opinion is barely justified as an advantage.