I really like the idea of leveraging local contacts for walkthroughs and feedback.

There are some great meet ups in your area I'm sure and a lot of people at those meet ups are more than happy to chat and give ideas and answer questions.

I'm open to ideas and subjects/information to research in case there is something I am missing or just don't know to look for yet.Thanks all!

Meet with a local banker & schedule a time to talk with a mortgage broker, they'll give you at least a baseline of what kind of down payment options and rates are out there.After that, if you're still wanting to research more creative options, do some looking into seller financing (a very hot topic with good, and bad, advice out there), look into private lenders, and commercial financing options.If you're wanting to live in 1/4 of your quadplex, then conventional residential loans may in fact be your best option as you can purchase that with a fannie/freddy loan with very low down, and use up to 75% of the income from the property toward your own income. 

I do like the idea of VAs tracking KPIs I got to let the team know!

I had a similar idea (having one of the mortgage brokers I know underwrite any prospective buyers.

Is buying a rental into a living trust a good idea?

If you get a proven operator that offers sightly less, it may still be a good idea to stick with someone who's been around the block for a while. 

Seems like a ton of people have panties in a wad over that topic.

I’d also love market suggestions and ideas regarding how to connect with others in the REI space outside of the events that BP holds.