Once stocks become popular and liquid enough their correlation with each other really starts to steepen.I keep just enough reserves to cover worst-case scenarios with my RE holdings and they're held through a mixture of diversified assets. 

I am in the same situation where I live and I just searched apartment floor plans on the net and found what I thought would go well here and be popular convenient layouts for tenants.

IHDA (Illinois Program) has a few options, but most popular DPA program provides a grant up to 5% of the purchase price ($7,500 cap). 

We sell those investment properties all of the time and they are very popular for out of town investors.

If you want REAL rate of return/cash on cash, look outside of the typical areas.PS, a lot of the areas that are becoming popular/gentrified and hot topics now are just as crime-ridddn as areas that are completely ignored.

Or maybe with the popularity of HGTV and other shows, people have unrealistic perspectives on the depth of what rehab work requires.

I ask because one of the most popular ways of diming yourself out is to change the named insured to the LLC.

Parma is a popular suburb for SFR/MFR on the west side close to you.

Prince William County is a popular area for those that commute to DC (or close to it) for work.  

This is very popular in rentals with hands-off or absentee landlords who don't handle much of their own maintenance.We do business in Pittsburgh, the city proper and the immediate suburbs.