It really comes down to personal preference, but at the end of the day your taking a risk with RE either way so if you have the time and will power id say Brrrr, unless your hard-pressed for cash.

Buy and hold is not sexy so it does not get a ton of press. 

. #3 - A Duplex under 400k in any of the areas mentioned above do not exist and you will still be hard pressed to find a good one in another area of Orlando.

That’s 8% of your purchase price.Even a boom in appreciation is going to be hard pressed to counter that. 

Usually the path of least resistance is to house hack a property, live for "free" and save up enough money to press full steam ahead!

You will be hard-pressed to find anything that will cash flow.

And I'm not even talking splash and dash work but simply renewalTake up old carpet and refinish the hardwoods underneath cheap and easy as heckProfessional interior paint and trimReface cabinets, new appliances, new vanities in bathroomsclean the place new doors instead of those ugly old brown onesNew light switches (trust me here), faucetsnew light fixtures"shrub up" and trim the lawnOn a small house you would be hard pressed to spend 15KNow rent it to tenants who love it and who might buy their own starter house in a couple of years.  

Even considering a SFH rent by the room strategy to friends, I'm hard pressed to find anything that will cashflow. 

As people press into our country because of our fought for freedoms and flee their countries because of lost rights, I think it will be harder and harder to own RE in the US.

If you run all of the numbers, on all of those examples you gave, I bet you would be very hard pressed to find a good example of one being an investment...without some sort of rationalization.