Possibly for another year or two.I also have the concern that when the market turns, Stockton will get hit again, there's just not enough job growth to sustain this economy. 

You could certainly start out wholesaling using double-closes and assignments, as you have enough funding to sustain a reasonable marketing budget for the 6 mths or so it'll likely take to get your deal flow going (allocating $1k/mth, for example).

Our roof had sustained 14 severely split rafters out of 22 on the rear end of the house.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this as opposed to financing.Buying with cash has one huge disadvantage - eventually you run out of it.The only way to sustain it, and it's what we do, is earn a lot of money outside RE that pays for new houses.The deals we like these days are good old owner financed.

Just create great sustainable housing for renters and knowing you are doing a better service than affordable government housing would. 

What I didn't say was after the dinks got things all rocking and rolling in a sustainable manner, then came the empty nesters in their 50's, they made  the center of the circle bigger pushing dinks further out and higher too, lot of mid rise and condos started popping up but condos are not for everyone, the ground dwelling dinks kept creeping pushing the boundaries out further. 

The down payment for conventional duplex is 15% down, you can do FHA with 3.5% down. if you start moving toward 3 and 4 unit properties, you have added guidelines on FHA, i think its called self sufficiency or self sustainability. that will change things. but if Duplex is what you're after, and a low down is the main priority, then FHA is your best move. 

to house hack is nice, but make sure you can sustain yourself in times of vacancy and repairs.

The two main goals right now are to tenant-proof the main house the best we can (removing old carpet, replacing with laminate, removing the cracking kitchen tiles with the same laminate) and to try and take advantage of the weird situation that is 'the shop' out back.It doesn't seem cost effective to try and plumb an extra bathroom or turn it into a self-sustainable MIL unit but maybe I'm wrong? 

Now we do access that equity still when we hold, so we get the benefit of both, but that's because we can.You just need to have a really good repeatable, and self sustaining system in place to take full advantage of the Michigan market...especially when you are dealing with a partnership.