But you want your policies to be fairly firm. 

Be firm and follow the law, don't let her fall further behind. 

To thrive in real estate investing, you must maintain a firm grip on your finances.

You need to be responsible, but firm.  

Many employers are seeing now as a great time to opportunistically buy or lease, usually downsizing, into new office spaces in the district during this period where there are still depressed prices, even on some Class A office spaces.The Resurgence of the Office Market in D.C.The resurgence of employers returning to the city with the pandemic fears now in the rearview mirror is apparent with Q4 of 2024 being the first quarter of positive leasing absorption for office space in the District over the last 10 quarters (Source) Another example is Boston Properties Group (NYSE: BXP), the largest publicly traded developer, owner, and manager of Class A Office space in the United States, is building a 320,000 square foot new trophy office in Downtown DC, with 5 floors already pre-leased to the global law firm McDermott Will & Emery as well as the Rockefeller Group developing a 422,000 square foot office building slated for delivery in 2026 at 600 Fifth St.NW, which is similarly 50% pre-leased (Source).

To thrive in real estate investing, you must maintain a firm grip on your finances.

Build up your portfolio with a professional landlord and then as your portfolio grows transfer the assets over to a larger PM firm for ongoing accounting and management. 

To answer the first big question in your post — single family vs multi-family — I am firmly in the multi-family camp.

At closing my firm gets paid. 

I am a firm believer that real estate agents should spend the majority of their efforts marketing to sellers, but beggars can't be choosers.