I have mine really nicely furnished with good quality furniture and high end finishes (quartz, stainless steel appliances). 

Under bidding, poor quality, not following timelines - those will all kill your project.

If my husband and I were to start over again we would buy higher quality assets and not be focused on immediate cash flow and unit count like we were when we started this after exiting a fairly decent sized small business.

So you can scale that if you want.FHA is for people with poor credit and very little down payment.

@Marc ShinLike @Andrew Steffens said, for big items, go with quality.

I wouldn't have to wait longer to prove my income on something that price.However, I'm wondering if it's a good investment or, like someone told me, "if house prices are that low, you'll likely be in a poor area and not have great tenants."

First, is poor management.

You want to consider the quality of tenants you get and being in a central area means people can get to their jobs / school conveniently.

You can also sell them on sites like paperstac, debexpert or others as well as brokers like Mission Capital, Rams or Phoenix.Depending on quality of paper and interest rate will determine sales price - also I would say self servicing can have a negative impact on the sales price as the major players in the space are not fond of self servicing. 

Is the tenant quality good?