I have no reason to stay in Gilbert, other than it's where my family lives currently, so it's nice to be close. 

You can offer whatever you think is appropriate and message the seller with your reasoning.

P.S; We live in Wilmington NC so both markets would be "long distance" P.S.P.S there are no reasonably priced multi family properties local to us.

Any smallerunits just make them equivalents of a 10 x15. 3 5 x 10's= 1unitAlthoughI am counting them all as the same, the reason, I say count by sizeis for when you build.Nowlets calculate "Demand":Numberof units needed (Step 1) minus Number of units existing (Step 2) =Quantity to build.Town1:500- 400 = 100Town2:300- 100 = 200Town3:andso on.Thiswill help you pick which town you have the greatest potential forsuccess.

Quote from @Jessie Dillon: one thing that you can do is have the seller transfer the deed to a living trust that they're the sole beneficiary of, and call the bank to give them a heads up that they're doing it for estate planning purposes. then, a month or more later, buy the property sub-to, and change the beneficiary of the trust. the bank can not see who owns a trust, and if they ever come back and question it, you can just swap the beneficiaries again, show the bank that the seller is still the owner, then swap it back again when they buzz off. this is one of many reasons it's so important to keep a good relationships with the seller if you're buying this way. you have to work together on some stuff.In summary: fraud. 

For example, this investor that I met recently said not to buy properties at tax auction for 100+ different reasons.

Bad contractors are one of the main reasons why first time investors never do a second deal.

Pro rata is the best but it’s definitely not the fairest and it causes the tenants to be upset, for good reason. 

There is a good chance that if you put your primary home into an LLC, you'd most likely lose that exclusion.Is there a particular reason you are considering making this LLC?

Not always the case but more times than not, this is the reason.