Was the SFH in a single family zoned area? 

Purchase price: $600,000 Cash invested: $30,000 Purchased single family home, finished basement making the property a duplex.

In this case, Azibo was super strong on bugging me when they first started.

For the 10 year period spanning December 2014-2024, single-family prices in Austin nearly doubled, yielding an annualized appreciation rate of ~9.4% in that period.

He wanted it all sold as a single package with no owner financing.  

Smaller SFH = less maintenance , there are lots of single looking for a place to live .

., "I will buy at least one single-family home, duplex, triplex, or fourplex before the end of 2019") and then do it.

If you're purchasing a single family home you can use traditional financing like you probably did on your house or you can do a commercial loan.

Then (@Dave Foster and others, please comment here), about a year before they want to retire to Las Vegas, they could 1031 exchange these properties into a single property that would match their future lifestyle.

If you're looking for cash flow you can easily make $300/mo net on a single family property in a better neighborhood/condition.