To answer your question I'm looking to learn as much as I can and to get acclimated with how all of this works... there are many different avenues that one can take and an array of strategies to choose from.

As for some of the other commenters here, the idea is this:Buy a small multifamily in year 1Buy a larger multifamily in year 2Buy a great, large, nice multifamily in year 3Buy a small commercial property in year 4Buy a larger commercial property in year 5This is to be done with conventional financing, using cash flows from previous investments, and is in contrast to the widely popular strategy of accumulating SFRs in the manner described below:Buy 1 SFR in year 1Buy 2 SFRs in year 2Buy 3 SFRs in year 3Buy 4 SFRs in year 4Buy 5 SFRs in year 5I know that real estate doesn't work out exactly like this, but please understand the argument that I'm trying to grasp are the economic advantages of purchasing a large number of SFRs, vs buying just 1 property or so per year, but buying larger and larger each time, snowballing NOT into a vast number of houses, but instead into an equivalently large dollar volume of real estate assets, but with fewer properties that offer economies of scale.

My main problem is that the comps in the area range from ~470k to 590k which is far to wide a margin to really run my numbers with any degree of confidence.

I go into it eyes wide open and get approval before doing the work.  

Hi @Matt Kampf it seems like you are going into the situation with your eyes wide opened so I wish you the best and by the way people steal A/Cs from anywhere good and bad NBHDs lol.

The home is an older non financeable, very cute single wide with a nice kitchen and large living room.  

While someone may be a "neighborhood expert", most good agents can cover a pretty wide area competently.  

There is a problem with eviction discovery and it is industry wide.

We lived in a double wide in a trailer park for 5 years.

And since I'm new to this, I'm wide open to any suggestions on how to evaluate multi-families and on how to do business in general.Thanks to any/all who help!