the only way i'd encourage you to invest in one of them though is if you're actually going to put time and effort into visiting and building a team and employing some kind of strategy. 

I have a few reasons for this. 1) We are both self-employed and our income is inconsistent. 2) We don't want to impact our DTI, because we are planning on buying a house hack within the next year or so.We would be open to going up to 6 units for our first property as long as it's within budget.Now that you have some context, is it possible for a rookie to use a DSCR loan on a duplex or triplex?

If they do not qualify because of poor credit or income issues compared to being self employed etc there are differences - but typically people don’t qualify due to poor credit and people will seller finance to these borrowers thinking they woke up at a holiday inn and got a finance degree when in reality they repeat their past mistakesRemember the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result

Not doing anything to get better education or employment opportunities.

Economic Timing.According to data compiled by Marcus & Millichap[2], the Portland area has experienced three very important trends since 2010:The average price per unit for apartments has nearly doubledThe rate of employment growth rose from 2010 to 2015 but has since declined steadily, projected to be up 1% for 2020 (estimated before COVID-19)Roughly 30,000 apartments have been built since 2010, with another 5,600 units slated for construction in 2020Most RHA members have enjoyed a solid decade of price growth, rent growth and steady occupancy.

No surprise, this, along with job growth (HP is a large employer) forces prices to stay high as demand creeps up too.

For those managing active income streams—like wholesaling, flipping, or even running a real estate business—filing as an S-Corp can significantly reduce self-employment taxes.

Try to look for well-located properties near employment centers.

Sounds like we employ nearly identical strategies.

Additionally, due to limited capital and the desire to minimize risk in a new country (for us) we employed a Master Lease strategy.