The cost per sq foot for 2-4 units is about 25-40% higher than SFR.Find a decent sized SFR that needs work, buy as owner occupied with 95% LTV rehab loan that pays for rehab and conversion.

Stick to the mid-size towns like Pottsville and Tamaqua.Good luck. 

Any owners out there with a similar-sized property that have been impressed with their management company?

Finding a good broker is your best bet, in my opinion.4.

Also, you might reach out to a commercial broker in the area and see if they can give you the prevailing cap rate for the area and size/class of property, with that you might be about to get a feel for what other properties in the area are trading at and give you some more leverage for negotiating.

Local credit unions and banks of all sized will do that type of loan.

I'd says things like; "You are fixated on square footage determining if a house is comparable but you are comparing single story houses to my two story and single stories cost more to build and typically sell for more than two stories of equal square footage" and would get told "if you don't like it go to the review board".What's the bet that next year when we try to use comps from early 2019 when the market has been soft they won't accept them if the market has gotten stronger towards year end.

I bet that is going to take longer than you expect.

With retail, good size units are 1500-3000 SF as there are a lot of users for these sizes. 

How are you going to dig out under a full size dumpster without moving it?