Single family usually doesn't make much sense from a rent/price ratio in A-B areas unless you are doing a rehab.

Purchase price: $160,000 Cash invested: $40,000 Sale price: $268,000 I bought my first house in Kalispell Montana as a long term investment and possibly a rental.

The multi family course  is a bit more complicated  and costly but it's worth it price too. 

After winning the bid I had to provide 5% of the price as earnest money within 1 day of the seller countersigning the contract.

@Martin Manning To add onto what others have shared, in the most simplistic terms, apartment complex values are based on Net Operating Income, or NOI, and the cap rate.Price = NOI / Cap RateSo, if an apartment complex has an NOI of $100,000 and a market cap rate of 10%, the value is $1,000,000.Listing agents for complexes love to price based on a pro-forma, which is utter nonsense (unless you're in Austin, in which case apartment complexes apparently have floors made of gold).

In my experience tenants on the lower end of rent tend to cause more damage than higher price tenants.

I'll likely be higher priced on an owner-occupied restaurant franchise, but you've been around the block and have a significant track record.

Greatest thing about these platforms (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.) is the you get to see all your competitors, their pictures, amenities, pricing, etc. 

Instead, I bought a home at full price and missed out on years of potential savings and rental income.

It seemed like a long-term play with less price or industry volatility.