A Hard Money Lender will evaluate your deal on its merits and will usually prioritize a good deal over your personal DTI.  

Each author and story should be judged off their own merits. 

That way you can view the merits of each property.

Food for thought: Cheap and good is not likely to be fast.Good and fast is not likely to be cheap.Fast and cheap is not likely to be good.I believe there is a lot of merit in investors being able to ask themself what do I have to offer that contractor, that they don't already have?  

Good luck in finding someone who will give you 20% down and pay 12% interest...again, you're not dealing with a motivated owner, but instead you're pushing a rope by trying to make a deal out of something that doesn't appear to have merit as a wholesale deal.

These are sound concerns, and each should merit review.

These days, I suppose Alberta could generate enough traffic to merit its own forum, but the Maritimes and Newfoundland and the territories certainly do not have the population base to sustain one for each province/territory.I should go back and do some analysis and see how many folks are actually posting in the province specific forum versus the Canada forum and how that correlates to where they are located.

I also was previously roommates with a friend and that worked out well enough.My question is, would there be any merit in looking for a moderately nice duplex to house hack in this market?

Any deal I am interested in must stand on its own merits today.  

I think an elegant execution is the best strategy to lure in the better properties, unless you are interested in the low end properties, which do have their own merits.