Have you considered looking at a market with lower price entry (lowering your risk profile on the first property helps get over the initial hump)? 

We added usb charger outlets above the bar area in our place because we had heard renters go gaga over them ( plan to rent out later).

I need as many specific examples as possible, please.Is there a "typical rule of thumb" on the number of properties you are personally managing/owning that would likely put you over the hours qualification hump? 

For many people getting over the hump of the first deal is the biggest challenge, so it's great you're looking for your second property.I think that yes, in your situation getting a 3-4 family multifamily rental would be the next logical step.Since you're still early in your investing career, I don't know that I'd recommend the third option you proposed, specifically using hard money to buy a rehab.

This is caused by a few trends but the most pronounced (in my opinion) are the facts that ~60 people move to Charlotte a day and almost all new inventory that is being built starts at $450k.If you own houses on the affordable side, supply and demand are going to continue to push up the prices up.Personally, I don't see us being able to build <$300k houses within the next 5-10 years and I also don't see the influx of people moving slowing down.

I see you are down south, would us being in Michigan be an issue? 

I store backups: on my main hard driveon an external USB drive (2 TB)in Dropbox (2 GB for free)in PCloud (10 GB for free).

I feel like this puts us in a very fragile position, both him and us being inexperienced.

The 6000 that I put in the comment is Because the LTV value is still so high with us being so early in the mortgage.

I've fallen off in certain aspects of aspects of growth that I hoped to achieve through getting out in the streets and meeting people , providing value, etc. and when that got shut down I kinda shut down that aspect but as they say how we respond to tough situations in our lives says more about ourselves than the situation in front of us!Be