Its not something we do so I would not be the person who can assist on the exact way to do it, but there are several here on BP that can assist. 

Hello everyone,My husband (veteran) and I bought a house last year with a VA loan (0% down), and we lived in it for more than a year.

Live in for a year, then move and rent out the unit you were occupying. 

The daily calls is a Facebk live stream where you can ONLY ask ?

I bought a lot 18 years ago with the intention of building a home and moving there because my best friends lived next door.

Not as much as multifamily but still more than STNL single tenant or 2 to 4 tenant type retail center properties.The larger centers they live or die by the anchor tenant so really have to know if that tenant owns or lease the space, when it was last re-imaged inside and out, and what sales they do per sq ft year over year and how they have been trending.Larger retail centers have defaults from smaller tenants with covid right now to work through so offering should have reserves built in for some not making it so buy in cap rate on existing NOI might go down in the short term as tenants are lost and tenant replaced.

To be clear, I'm thinking I would do the above for several years while building my portfolio and learning, and then solely focus on my portfolio once I'm established and am generating enough income to live off of.

I suspect you'll have a hard time getting an attorney to assist you in an activity you're engaging in illegally.

If any experience realtors can assist me, by given me their opinion on what could possibly be the best choice, I would greatly appreciate it. 

Some background...I lived 20ish miles north of Detroit until I was 32.