If you are planning on selling, contact a realtor to make sure you are getting a fair value for your house. 

The market appreciates 3% per year.Pay cash for one house and rent it for $1,500.

I've read many of the BiggerPockets books like - House Hacking- Flipping- Estimating Rehabs- Multifamily Millionaire Book I and II- How to Invest in Real Estate with Low or No Money Down- Investing from a Distanceand even some outside of themand have been wanting to do something in Real Estate for awhile.

Start by leveraging what you already have—consider tapping into equity through a HELOC, house hacking again with an FHA loan, or increasing cash flow by converting a unit to a short-term rental.

I looked into this at more than one occasion, because Milwaukee has such an old housing stock, everything is 60-120 years old.Most of the new apartments we see are 4 and 5 star developments with very high rents, this allows to offset the high cost of construction a little better.

Some neighbors also told me that there seems to be more people living in the house (on the lease its supposed to be the lady and her two kids 4 YO and 8 or 9 YO).

There may be some lenders that might be a little more "borrower friendly", but I haven't found them (nor do I have the time to look for them).You might be able get better terms if you "house hack" by getting an FHA loan, but I don't generally work with those loans.

SFR houses will only appraise based on comps.So unless someone was paying cash you can't get more than they appraise for.The camp ground is a different story.

However, I don’t yet have the funds for a down payment on another house, and I’m trying to figure out the best option for where to live while I rent the apartment.Do you have any recommendations for managing this transition or tips on finding a temporary place to stay?

On a positive note we did build a new house to the specifications of a specific tenant.