I'm also considering a separate living room space or maybe some kind of artist studio. 

I don't care what anyone online says if you live there and have tenants at your home it will be a job. 

I have a client house hacking in Hoboken who bought for a bit over $1.3m - they live in the top duplex 2/1.1 and rent the bottom duplex 2/1.1 as an MTR now and probably will make 4k/month.

As I spoke to an expert who invests all over the US in sober living, he told me the best way was to find treatment centers nearby the area you want to invest.

For instance, someone making $500k a year and living in a very highly appreciating market might be extremely happy on a deal that loses $200 a month but is getting 5% appreciation on a 2 million dollar property in San Diego, butut that doesn't make sense for the investor with 30k and a lower paying job.When it comes to the book series I agree with you that the order doesn't make sense (having read both).

He was just an unemployed alcoholic living off the government teat, ruining one rental after another.Smells like money.

If you lived in the property you can sell it to capture the equity without paying taxes on those gains.

Also I am thinking now that these are small rural counties with population in the entire county probably no more than 50k or so.. at least with most of those folks living in the city of Oroville which is right on the border with British Columbia In my flying days I would go into Oroville to get through US customs compared to going into one of the airports Airports north of Seattle .

You’ll often see sales with 100-200% swings within the same area, which makes having deep local knowledge and understanding the nuances absolutely critical.I do this for a living, and even with experience, comping in Detroit can still be challenging.

That should catch most of these issues.Some, you'll never know about until someone actually lives in the property.