Ask your HML those questions.I am biased towards flips because: 1) I've had some tenants destroy a few of my houses, 2) I can make 2-3 years of rent off of one flip.

It's a pain in the butt to try to remove and neutralize, plus destroys carpets/carpet padding.I don't allow cats.

I do think that SFH is a good idea-- easier to find tenants who want to stick around and not destroy the place.

Also, potential large expenses would be another risk (tenant destroys an apartment, large repairs, etc.), along with deciding to sell the property shortly after buying, though I don't plan to do this.Currently I've been focusing on properties in areas that I'm more familiar with, and have been looking at larger multifamilies or apartment buildings in decent areas (not a higher than average crime neighborhood) that are fully or nearly fully rented with around 8%-10% cap rates (from reading other posts, I know I'll have to verify the cap rate myself).

As far as risk tolerance, I do not want to be involved in a war zone area where tenants will be destroying the place, prefer C+/B+ neighborhoods.

One of his commercial tenants was a wholesale travel agency (organizes tours, book cruises on line)  that was priced out of midtown Manhattan with the aftermath of 9-11 when the twin towers was destroyed.

Now every rehab I've seen is $50k+ in renovation costs, even for a 1,000 sqft house.Planning for a 6-month flip is going to destroy you.  

What you don't want to do is get yourself so tight that if some unforeseen thing happens it starts the snowball rolling that destroys everything you've worked to build up. 

As all too many found out during the downturn and were destroyed.

I know it can be quite a pain to get these kinds of maintenance requests, especially in the summer, but I'd rather have my maintenance team look into it than having the tenant hire someone cheap and maybe they end up destroying the whole AC unit itself.