I also have a background in data science, so I've been pulling together a data set with all sorts of data about population growth, migration patterns, income growth, job growth, number of building permits, local GDP growth, educational attainment trends, home price growth, and rental price growth.

Prices for houses are just too expensive but apartments are more attainable in the 300-350K USD for 2BR Apartment (low-mid range) and rents are anywhere from 2000-3500 USD,these apartments are easy to sell or find tenants since they are in demand.I was fascinated with the real estate market and how does it generate a lot of income for their owners.

I would love to be able to get into a MF, something like a 4- unit townhome right away but I’m not sure if that is attainable at the moment given the prices of most 4 unit town homes.

Break that down into 90 day sprints and you will make it that much more attainable.

Perhaps a strategy towards attaining income independence would be to initial passively invest, learn how to raise money, then move into syndicating your own deals once you have the experience, reputation and contacts.

Money is cheap, but cash flow is hard to attain.

this is brought up on BP nearly daily.You truly attain the asset protection of the LLC, both the Title and mortgage needs to be in the LLC. 

I say this as I attained my BBA from Wichita State back in 2003 being 39 now - but times have completely changed in how one learns, opportunities, how you can connect socially etc. 

It's an option, but certainly not one for everyone.Buy things that claim to be 16% or higher ConC but prove, like the market general does) to return closer to 6-12% for quality properties in linear markets.Lose your sleep and maybe your shirt in some bad investments attempting to make the market return higher than it is generally willing to return.However, if you are patient with this approach, you could grow your equity pile to a point where a $4-5k per month cashflow is readily attained, and in a way that you'll not rue the properties that you bought to get you the cashflow.Totally depends on your goals and the timeframe, but SFRs and Multifamily is a great path to cashflow and total wealth! 

It took a little convincing but my girlfriend came around and she agreed this would be a good move for us going forward.Creating this cash flow every month would really push us in the direction of attaining the goal of financial freedom.