I feel a loss of direction and that makes it really hard for me to focus and build.Do we keep at building a portfolio of small multi family (very abundant in my market, very rare to find anything above a triplex for sale), with plans of selling the portfolio and 1031'ing into larger properties? 

This sort of thing is market specific.

Data can be sorted by property type, lien position, LTV, and even the seller's proximity to the property. 

Leave the owners alone, when and if they are ready to sell, they will, and there will be plenty of lots to choose from on the MLS.I have no statistics to back this up, but in my casual observation after our fire is about 1/3 of the owners rebuilt their homes (some built similar, some duplicated exactly--big mistake, and some built better/nicer/larger homes). 

I was thinking about doing real estate sales on the side as a sort of part time hustle while I'm in school and working my w-2 but that's great to know.

These are business purpose loans so there isn't any sort of red tape when purchasing multiple properties at once or one after another.

Commercial real estate deals involve larger sums of money and require a deeper understanding of the industry, so it's important to work with someone who has expertise and experience in this space.

Its arbitrage of sorts. 

You have the tools and mindset that work with larger scale commercial so I would network until you meet someone who may let you run some of their deals with them and see what they look like in person.

Syndication appealed to me because of the headaches of OOS investing and finding a property, managing the property manager, etc.I've talked to 2 larger syndicators which I posted about in a separate post.