A lot of people will open new credit cards (personal or business) in anticipation of large upcoming expenses.

You will get minimal, if any, economies of scale and operational efficiencies at the unit size you're thinking about.

In fact, buying something that needs a bit of work may allow me to pay cash, renovate, and then refinance and pull out a large portion of the capital I have invested. 

Personally, I feel PM are more for out of state investor or people with large portfolios.

Of course, this is assuming you have your personal financial house in order, i.e. no large credit card debt or large personal loans.

Now my question is would it be best to spread this across a wide portfolio or would it be better to put it in one or two large investments?

The LLC will need commercial loans which have less favorable rates and conditions than the conventional loans, but it is doable and others seem to be doing it to scale up their investments.

Looking to scale our business by flips and MFH's.

Build a large warchest, and then buy on the low.Terry

Also, as far as good signs for a market: look for job growth, population growth in the area in the last several years, see how many major employers are there, whether these major employers can sustain the population growth, whether these are the types of employers that will remain for a long time (in demand, like a Hospital or  College), also how close is a town to the large metro, can people get to work under one hour.