You'll need a specialty lender who will finance it with something resembling a car loan.  

Forced appreciation is generally highly correlated with active management, some time component that resembles a job, or both.  

Perhaps creative financing is a way to break in with this seller at a price that may be closer to what he wants.Anyway, the above is purely for illustration with no guarantee it resembles anything you may want to pursue.

Put the lipstick on one of them, but leave the other to resemble what's typical for the area.

That being said, when I lived for the longest 5 years of my life in California, there were a zillion contractors who had nothing that resembled either a license nor the experience that would need to accompany it.

If it's a struggle to make it work, that's a sign to move on.I'm not currently an MFR landlord, but I can tell you that owning one has little resemblance to owning a rented-out condo.

Anything that even remotely resembles a deal is usually gobbled up by a cash offer.  

You will see that it resembles Florida a lot more then most of the the west coast does as far it's recovery after the crash.  

In Bryans case I assume we are talking about 1 LLC with multiple properties, no doubt a business entity.I don't know whether my state requires this, I was thinking that this would be done to more resemble in a formal fashion a business entity, thereby looking more like a business and not like an individual with a rental.I notice large businesses own lots of property in their names.

Have an attorney prepare a contract for you that closely resembles the board approved version (again for deals with an agent involved they will still insist on using the approved forms)3.