This is because those who househacked actually pulled the trigger and started to gain experience while those looking for strictly an investment were too focused on numbers and returns to get their hand and feet wet.You can put little money down and take advantage of favorable rates. its a no brainer IMO 

Also, at this time I had seen properties selling for 10 – 20% over ask regularly.Interest Rate 30 year conventional 7%Homeowners Insurance = $1,000 annuallyRents = $1,800 per monthWhen I looked at those assumptions, I would need to put down $80,000 on this house to get it to hit my cashflow goal of $500 minimum per month which equates to 35% down.Total mortgage + escrow = $1,267.13 per month with rents at $1,800 my monthly cashflow is $532.87.From my experience, after taking out vacancy and maintenance costs you are left with around 73% of that total cashflow number once the rental is established.People have asked why a $500 per month cashflow goal.

In many instances, parties to a transaction try to hit a home run in one deal instead of remembering that they'll do better in the long run by taking care of the other people in the transaction.

Take @Frank Rolfe's MHU bootcamp!

This will obviously take more effort on your part but in the long run, the exercise will be a valuable lesson for future calculations.

Or is your plan to take their equity as your profit?

Just keep in mind the more detailed you get, the less data could be provided so you have to take it with a grain of salt.

I put roughly 20% down on a $200k home, and am curious what steps I could take to possibly turn my original investment into a large portfolio within the next 10 years, when we're currently "low on liquid funds" after finishing up a wedding.... 

If you're unsure of any data, AI will take the best guess of industry standard for that particular repair.

Quote from @Srini Rajamani:There is a lot of information out there and many paths to take.