I particularly thought this was a good read:In Superstar Cities, the Rich Get Richer, and They Get Amazon - New York and Washington are leaving the rest of the country behind.

Hey @Mike Chmielewski - This is a bit of a grey area, but realistically, if this is your first home, & within commutable distance to your employer, and you'd like to owner occupy it, that's a really straight forward transaction.People move for legitimate reasons quickly all the time - (Job location change, not comfortable in the area, opportunity to move into a single family, etc.)Happy to chat a bit further about this offline.

A quick and simple evaluation tool is this. 

I have to quickly, in the few days, switch to a commercial policy since I am buying a 4-unit building through FHA, owner-occupy. 

Essentially, a quick Google search and plugging a property into the BiggerPockets calculators doesn't make for a good partnership or joint venture, and people are going to be reluctant to dump their money into someone they don't know that does not have a resume.

So while I can't speak as to how their month to month operation is, I can say I was extremely impressed with how quickly they place a tenant, and they were able to get a lease signed for a couple hundred more per month than I thought!

Whoever told you that Sam was just flat out lying to you, probably in an attempt to get an out of state person to buy quickly.

Also keeping in mind REI is best used as a get rich slow method.

If it really goes bad you can always take something with quick loans like paydayloanstexas-tx.com and you'll have some time to get it all together and figure out what to do next.

And factor in that you're in an appreciation rich market you don't want to leave if more appreciation is on the horizon.