If you're able to purchase a multifamily close to the school it opens up the possibilities of using the units for traditional long-term rent, renting to students or AirBnB. 

You cannot however do traditional 1 year leases using a second home loan. 

What I would really concentrate on is analyzing the deal as a traditional long term rental without you living in the property in 1-2 years.

We follow the traditional standard CA real estate rental form - nothing fancy.

Abby,Talk to a local, traditional mortgage broker. 

You can't follow traditional metrics of tenant-friendly or landlord-friendly and think that will save you.

I understand the title insurance fee itself may be set by the state.It means that I am familiar with the nuances and requirements of investor-type deals that are not present in "traditional" retail deals.

So in fact he is doing WAY MORE than any traditional agent or broker (myself included) is doing in ways of transparency, disclosure and notice.

All of those activities wouldn't be in a "traditional" Customer Relationship Management tool anyway. 

For us residential, it's the traditional lender that feels the pain.However as OP is thinking correctly, the gap or spread between riskless CD and equity investment is narrowing, maybe it's like 3% only at max.However, just think about if , if public interval debt fund like NICHX or Cliffwater can give me 8% why I do need to invest at multifamily equity.