As the legally required small print in the offering of financial products reads: "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance".

Its simple arithrimetic but often there is an angle and no prop is the same.  6)  good beginner rule I use for myself is that for a buy and hold multi - if it needs more than 10k of work its probably not a great FIRST investment.  

We will continue to observe the performance of this property and eventually will build a second house next to it.

I could see this being a bit overwhelming as a beginner with a bunch of units to manage on the top of trying to learn.

Number makes sense on paper but let's see how we perform at the beginning of next year. 

We've got a few homes near campus we use as student rentals and they certainly perform well.

Based on the user research we've seen most use cash flow as a proxy for performance.

Beginners Luck! 

Since I work from home I think house hacking would suit me since I can live on the property and perform some of the easier maintenance tasks myself.

There are absolutely areas where you can beat a 10% cap rate - I see it all the time - you just need to know where to look and what types of properties perform best.Some areas I would check out include Bailey, Arvada, Westminster, unincorporated Adams County, and many more I could point you to beyond that.