In our current litigious society it is difficult to get previous landlords (especially big box LL) to give an honest response about the quality of people applying to my units.

How your city designates multi is irrelevant, we all don't live in your city.The definition is set in LAW, not by someone working in some city P&Z office, it is DEFINED by HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, better known as HUD.

I'm still very bullish on Florida especially Tampa area beaches and the urban corridor with the Water Street Development. 

I've seen how both urban and cabin/more rural properties were both successful for you.

It would never appreciate to where it would be worthwhile and great cash flows on paper but not gonna happenI would bet this is common in many of these other urban low priced areas.

Is there a "sweet spot" distance from a highly, mainly urban area?

If this property had been in one of the areas zone for more density they would surely have done a normal "Seattle six-pack" of 0-lot-line townhouses but instead they short platted 2 lots to still in effect end up with a six-pack even though in an area not zoned for it, at the cost of having to sell units as condos and deal with other ADU limitations (e.g. 1000sf limit).In 2023 the State mandated Seattle-style ADU regulations across all urban growth area cities/counties, going even a bit further (2 of any combination of attached/detached allowed).

In today's society, we have too many coaches and mentorship programs run by salespeople, not operators.

I am familiar with Dublin and Grove City, but would love to learn of other area. best way to invest in multifamily is to build it in columbus urban core where new construction trades at 30% higher than existing multifamily and build it at a discount. 

as long a society keeps protecting the idiots we will continue to have more and more of them