@Luke Hamlin you can buy a second home with 10% down with a Conventional loan.

A landlord policy can be a commercial policy or a personal lines policy.It's the same as asking if you should buy a single family rental or a 1 unit building.Focus on the coverages and disregard the name of the policy.

I wouldn't recommend setting up an LLC out of state if you are buying in Tennessee unless your tax advisor is looking to help you on strategy.. but from a numbers standpoint, it really doesn't make sense when you start adding up on all of the annual LLC reporting fees from different states and then it starts cutting into your cashflow.

Are you agent yourself and what makes you say that you'll avoid buying a home under 1000 sqaure feet again? 

Each investment property that you buy is eligible.

New construction in a saturated market isn’t always the best play if you’re looking for steady returns.A place like Rochester has way better fundamentals—lower buy-in, strong rent-to-price ratios, and stable demand from universities, hospitals, and major employers.

Interest rate 3.8% In short this is how you do it...Find a flip opportunity, use hard money or what you got to buy, rehab it, re-finance it, boom.  

Investment Info:Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

I’m looking into buying a rental(s) in this area.

You can offer to buy the upstairs residents an area rug, but I wouldn't force it on them.