I've been buying and selling MF in Vermont for 10 years. 

Did you buy your primary home plus house hacking it?

If you can buy and hold, you will make money in the next 3-5 years, even though you may have a temporary negative equity experence. 

Do you think it’s better to buy a single family rental in the Saint Pete or the Tampa Bay Area?  

The third pic is ten percent down with us us buying the rate down to 4.5 percent.

I'd never buy a development unless I was confident in the valuation and there was data to back the feasibility of the build. having preliminary approval is very different than permit ready where you can put a shovel in the ground day one.

In the end we did not feel like we had a lot of choice because we really did not want to lose the contract to buy the house.

I subscribe to the 'don't leave much equity in each LLC' philosophy.

IF you're in a HCOL area or HCOL region in a normal area, definitely add a bathroom it's a huge appraisal add and game changer. 10-15 years from now when you sell, nobody wants a 3/1 now and won't then. 3/1s stay sticky in any market I'm in, I'll buy distressed and add 1-2 bathrooms and get a huge return on just that. 

This means we need to buy under an LLC and not our personal.