Investing in a single-family home in LA and expecting a good cash-on-cash return will be very difficult. 

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

I have about 250k USD to allocate to this venture, but I may want to dip my toes into the market with a single-family residence in an area like Parma Heights and test the waters.

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

@Greg P.With a $750K budget, I recommend focusing on single-family home investments in the Midwest.

He is currently protesting a rent increase, and travelled from NY to FL to personally harass my family and I last week.

I think if you can nail that down you will be able to find a market easier.As a buy and hold investor some of the things that were important to me when deciding on a market were landlord tenant laws, price to rent ratio, housing demand, ability to build a team, large population 500K plus, multi-family availability and some other factors.take the process step by step and you will be fine. 

I am thinking of getting a list of leads and using the owner info to mail postcards or letters to find small multi family.

I mention this because there aren't as many multi family homes on the market in PHX as you'd think. 

Are you having luck doing new-build single-family infill projects?