When that area was built, people flocked to it for it's affordability, but over the course of several years, it became like a ghost town. 

I know its mean to say that people who do their own contracts get what they deserve, but you must know that if you are paying a couple hundred thousand dollars for something it just might have been worth spending $600 on a lawyer to do a proper contract for you.

Just because other people might be getting away with it for now doesn't mean they couldn't crack down on you after you buy a property their.

For example, in my state PA there is an inheritance tax and many TAX auction properties originate from people passing away and the heir(s) not taking control over the estate and paying those property taxes.

Capacity and Tolerance. 1) Capacity: how many people can you comfortably fit in the property, is there room to add more, or add more value to the tenants to increase rent.2) Tolerance: How many people are you comfortable living with, if there are vacancies are you able to handle that.House hacking is an amazing path to homeownership, and a nice low barrier to entry into self managing your properties.

Sub 2 people must have this problem too - how do you deal with it?

I am interested in meeting people from whom I can learn more about real estate investing. 

@Paul BushEr all heat lots of things - recommend doing some researching to find the case and get an understanding as that does not seem correct as you could call people to buy their underwear….

Plenty of people do have 10-20 unit and work thru it, you just need to think it thru and have a plan if you don't want to do all the work. 

There are a lot of really good people in the Memphis real estate community, and plenty of people will help.