There might be unexpected restrictions with the HOA and I would not count on keeping any sort of tax exemption

It requires a way to scale to a large number of units as a few hundred dollars of cash flow per unit does not go very far until the unit count is fairly high.  

I have been a landlord for 13yrs, but I feel like it doesn't really count because it was my mom renting from me (never had a missed payment ;). 

You can also count 75% of rents as income when buying a 2-4 unit so this will give you a bit extra purchase power. 

This income apparently does not count for mortgage qualifications ("boarder income").-- 10k cash savings, and about 50k in stocks, another 50k in 401k/roth-- I'm able to save *max* 45k cash/year with my current situation. 

I don't think I like this idea either, but I have never tried it so my opinion doesn't count for much. 

Thanks Colleen, we are in love with the keys, hopefully the weekly vacation rental market stays strong, I will have to count on capital appreciation 

After those two years, we'd like to move to CA and occupy this rental property but we're concerned this would disqualify us from counting it as a 1031.

What unit size (SF) bed & bath count, unit mix, etc are you seeing success with?

He counted bunkbeds for over a dozen people when he finally got to go in.