Mostly due to the fact my spouse and I agreed on her to have zero involvment in any sort of RE investing (and its our home) I think once you have a good 6-12 months of reserve cash (operating expenses for your own life saved as a back up incase things go bad) save enough liquidity to get the ball rolling on your first invesment.

All things being equal, a simpler option would be to terminate the lease with a penalty of one month's rent, agreed to in writing.

Taking the loss now is preferable to paying out monthly for the privilege of being a landlord.

After 45 + years as a real estate investor, broker, lender, fund manager and syndicator, I’ve become aware that the “dream” of many investors and investor “hopefuls” is to be able to generate enough cash flow to live off their real estate holdings and accumulate enough wealth to make “work” optional.

The biggest question you need to ask yourself is if you are doing this to afford a property you otherwise couldn’t afford or to save money period, that will lead to very different conclusions about where/if to buy. 

We negotiated it down from their original asking price of $1.8M but it needed to be a cash deal because the building was 50% occupied and of what WAS occupied was month to month office tenants.

But we are also both very used to corporate and used to having a security of a job.

House hack another property with a low down payment loan and use the remainder or the proceeds to either renovate or purchase another investment property?  

A triplex that cheap is hard to come by I'm curious as to which market you're investing in and the state of the property.

When I tried to get it when my side of the family found out and tried ti take over reverser mortgage payments to bank because she had died it was to late so they sold the house to Hud and then other reverse mortgage companies but a relative still lives there so they can't kick them out.