If you go this route then you'll know that you'll be putting all your eggs in this one basket, preparing yourself like a buy & hold gladiator over the next year on tenant screening, rehabbing (so you can get in those units and force appreciation) and analyzing deals so you can buy the right multi.If you go this route then you won't really get distracted by managing two different properties and trying to scale too quickly.Option 2: If you decide to go with this route you have several different steps that you have to take before you get to your desired end result.

Make sure it is someone who has fruit on the tree and should be giving you advice, and not someone who is qualified because he failed several times (and never succeeded) at what you're trying to do.  

I have about 20k set aside for my first deal but I am nervous to put all my eggs in one basket.

I think this removes a bit of your all eggs in one basket with one 40ish unit apartment complex as you have the other building that is most likely more stable.

Now you can argue class A's might have some basket cases too and that's absolutely true, but it certainly is a lot less frequent and a lot easier than class C.You are hopping a bit all over the place on strategy as well.

And I don't know if OUR bid had much of a chance of making money after the rehab.Had another house we looked at that got 35 other offers.40% of the offers coming in are all cash investors in the DFW market.I just feel like the low hanging fruit in the DFW area may be gone, especially for out of state investors, Its getting really tough to find anything that works right now in terms of cash flow. 

If you plan on prioritizing your list and going after the low hanging fruit, then I would use findtheseller.com.

Being a landlord is no basket of roses, high stress, high risk, late night calls, late rent payments, sleepless nights, tenant evictions, court appearances, tenant damage etc, etc, 

Will figure out the rest just trying to see if this is going to be bigger than a bread basket.

I prefer to spread my risk over multiple sources rather than just keep it all in one basket.