I helped my father run a family business for 15 years, and he taught me your word is everything, say what you mean and do what you say. As

When it comes to exclusions and small print, warranty contracts say a claim can be denied for lack of maintenance, improper maintenance, improper installation, pre-existing problems, code violations and numerous other reasons.Warranties are typically purchased by home sellers or their real estate agents to avoid lawsuits if something breaks in the first year.

Say a 25 or 30 year will lower the overall payment for more cash flow. 

After you pay down some or see rent growth and appreciation you can refi several into one commercial loan (say a 10 year fixed).

Let's say a bank gives a loan on a house, but there is another entity that actually has the Note - maybe the entity loaned the money via the bank or the bank sold the Note to that entity.

I'm a transplant from Canada, moved here (Bay Area, CA) about a year ago, and taking up permanent residence in the US.I have an investment property and other things (i.e retirement accounts and so on) back in Canada, looking for a CPA here that can help me with the straight forward stuff (filing taxes every year and so on) as well as advisory from time to time (whether it's dealing with cross border strategies to minimize the tax bites, or the same with US investment properties).I have an accountant in Canada as well so this person doesn't necessarily have to be say, a CGA/CA or whatever in Canada as well (but super bonus points if they are and can do both my US / Canadian returns!)

I'd say a dozen tenants is small...go for it!

When you say a sellers market, are you referring to Huntsville or Auburn? 

Thanks @Russell Brazil - so if say a 4 unit in my same area sold for 400K or 100K per door, then my building with 5 doors is potentially worth 500K - that simple?

In CO, we could buy, say, a fourplex and a house for the amount we could sell our CA triplex for, and probably get a little better cash flow.