Don't count yourself out for a house hack though there's still opportunities out there just need to be a little more patient nowadays.

They are a product designed (nowadays anyway) to help lower income Americans, who have a lower down-payment access the housing market  and support the economy.

Also, what are your thoughts on buying/investing nowadays, with the given economic situation?

For SFR's, it's common for tenants to pay utilities, so I either have them billed direct, or nowadays, email them a copy after paying on line.Some years back, I had a co worker that got crazy mad over the landlord billing back a monthly gas bill for cooking, half to him, that runs about $30/month total for the landlord.

A new Churchill Downs Hotel, casino, and racetrack is to open in a few months.

Do you feel that the casino is affecting Everett's prices at all?

Honing my skills nowadays and starting to talk to the right people to get the ball rolling.

I am also looking at pure rentals in any suburbs that have good economic outlooks.My longer term horizons include Texas, that seems to be the hot new thing nowadays.

The MLS thing used to be a reason, but nowadays with Zillow/Redfin/Etc you can usually find most of the ones that you'd want.

Just have to be a bit more patient nowadays.