If you don't like owing on your home, tackle that one. 

Not that there aren't lots of distressed properties, there are, but many of them are too far gone for a beginner to tackle and the ones that require only basic rehab are too close to ARV to make a decent profit in what I believe is a risky market (Greenfield, MA).

This isn't a job I've tackled before, so my questions are:(1) What's the difficulty level for me to repipe it (with PEX, maybe?

Either get a private loan from someone else, or find a partner to tackle the deal!

What scares me most, especially since we are focused on becoming a society living in constant fear, and this should be #5 is the fact that our future generation is ill-prepared to tackle any of these situations.

to a newbie, all this stuff seems overwhelming to tackle all at once. cool to see people out there doing it!

am I ready to tackle a turnaround project of this nature?  

Knowledge base between my friend and myself we could tackle just about anything.

I am forming a relationship with a local realtor who tells me that there are even more duplexes etc. to be found in great shape for as low as $130,000 and possibly lower.Without doing the entire math and factoring the land-lording etc aspect of it all, $800-$850 and $700-$750 rent in a $150,000 duplex looks mighty interesting.As I stated before, for proximity and practical reasons, I would LOVE to keep buying duplexes/Tris/4-plexes in our zip code here in Los Angeles but the little knowledge I’ve gleaned so far indicates that this would mean we tackle this by either going after foreclosures or “subject to” (sp?)

He's newer to the area but has a background as a general Contractor as well and has worked enough investment projects to be able to know which are worth tackling and how much they'll cost.