This is clarification I was looking for. 

Outside of West Oakland, what areas would you say are likely to go up in value over time - what pockets/neighborhoods are you looking at?

I spoke to another guy at a conference who used to build 1-3 units before doing commercial and he said he wishes he still did the single family because it generates a lot of cash and is pretty simple. 

You also will really have to look at your market.  

But here’s the big question: what really makes a contractor stand out?

Hey guys,Hypothetical scenario:You have 500k of you’ve saved and now want to drop everything and enter real estate full time…What’s your strategy to replace a 300k salary as quick as possible?

I'm a little curious about some of your assumptions: 1) Vacancy at 3% is very low (5%-8% is more common), 2) 5% income and 0% expense growth aren't realistic - more common is to have the difference between your income and expense growth around 1%-2%, 3) Paying P&I during rehab isn't common - normally this is setup as an interest only period until the property is stabilized and then do a DSCR loan, 4) A proforma cap rate of 9.21% is very high for this type of property (this more of a cap rate for a Section 8 property).

I've now had my LLC for almost 2 years without being able to write anything off.

@David Lewis I'm regularly looking at multi-family listings on MLS and can only find cash flow in tertiary markets - think Lowell, Fitchburg, Springfield, etc.

I am sure you will find lots of help down that path here though.