Ask them how many customers they have and how many own a single property vs. many units.

the issue is the $200K investment does not add any where close to $200K of value in most single family zoned areas. 

Starting with single-family and small multi-family properties is a smart choice, especially out of state.

., "I will buy at least one single-family home, duplex, triplex, or fourplex before the end of 2019") and then do it.

., single-family homes, condos, or cabins)?

There are many options for skip tracing, most just send a query to a single database while others hand-scrub the lists for the results.

@Jordan Moorhead I know of many single-asset syndications as well as funds that pay distributions but have negative operational cash flow.

If you kept the property, and accumulated the CF/yr, it would take you 25 years to get that same equity that's sitting, frozen in your property.Also, if you cashed out and used that same equity as a DP on different RE, at 20% DP, that equity would buy you $2M in PV, not just $700k,...and, I'd be willing to bet, you could find new RE that would have a yearly CF well over $20k/year.On top of that (remembering my initial statement above), any appreciation applied would be applied to $2M, not just $700k. 

Managing from afar can be done on single family homes with a few properties, but you'll still need a solid leasing agent and handyman which can sometimes be hard to find. 

However, its downfall (and really what makes it so easy) is that it is a single-entry system.