A while back I was listening to an older episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast back Michael Greene was still hosting and they talked to an insurance expert. 

And when doing inspection prior to auction someone was working on the house rehabbing it.. we bought the first showed up and the folks working on it had bought a second and had no clue on the first and did pretty much the full rehab out of pocket and now lost it all.. 

I understand equity and cash-flow are related, but what I mean is that I don't need the cash flow right now as much as I'd like to build a strong portfolio that can cash flow even more later on.I've owned a single-family rental for 4 years, but on mulitple fronts I felt like I've done a poor job self-managing it, so this Fall I picked up the Turners' book on managing rentals and that's what led me here to Bigger Pockets online.

Also I know HOA fees can be outlandish.Or, would you guys recommend me keeping my money in my pocket, getting a cheap apartment my first year of work, and watching for a 300-400k HOUSE while saving?

Welcome to Bigger Pockets Nik!

One has a four-family that he got about three years ago, fully occupied by Temple students.

Regardless of how you find them, try to interview at least three managers.1.

With a triplex, the cost for the same slab increases only slightly, to $28,000, but you get three units instead of one.

Welcome to Bigger Pockets. 

Meeting that 2 in 5 of the last requirement allows a single owner to shield $250k of appreciation and a married couple to shield $500k.Unless you predict a lot of income from the MTR or you feel that there is a lot of appreciation incoming over the next three years (minus time get the property sold), you may want to consider collecting your $100k (passing GO) and redeploying that money to whatever you feel is its best use.