I plan on making the full transition with in and no later than 6 months.

I am making the transition from my first rental which is an ADU attached to the back of our property...into our "1st rental in the portfolio" which will be through my newly established LLC. 

I want nothing more than for this first rental investment purchase to go smoothly and my tenants to be happy in their neighborhood.

Pretty smooth way to use OPM with no interest to get a deal done. 

All though they make their money monthly on rent collection and management in my eyes they are also own the tenants and the problems or smoothness when they find good tenants.This being said, Let them rent the units and use your time to find the next opportunity

Plenty of transactions go smoothly though and re-fi in a couple years.

I'm Looking for some great advice to move forward and make this first experience as smooth as possible. 

If it's a standard Lakewood up/down duplex it probably has a plaster ceiling under the ceiling tile-- at least all the ones I visited when my son was apartment hunting were plaster.IMO, the "nicest" fix (assuming the old plaster is in poor condition) is to scrape off the acoustic  tiles and then drywall over the old plaster with a smooth finish; the cheapest fix, if the only problem is the one tile you pictured, will be to screw up the tile(s) that is/are lose, cover the screw with a little joint compound and then primer and paint the ceiling; If you are lucky the tiles have already been painted before.

I would prefer a quadplex but will settle for a single family for the right deal.I have about 8 yrs left for a full military retirement so my goal is to create a cash flow portfolio that will assist during my transition into the civilian work force.

I’m leaving my 9 - 5 to pursue this full time, and am ready to work a second job to support the transition (in addition to tapping the savings I have set aside for the career change).