If you do that year over year, the cycle won't affect your wealth building since you're buying into the overall average.

I am also looking for any recommendations on realtors in the area with investor experience that can provide some answer to some of my questions such as if there are any regulations on short term rentals in the area, how the typical rental cycle has recently been performing, etc.If anyone has had any experience in this market and would be willing to share their experiences, it would be greatly appreciated.

We are somewhere late in the cycle of a sellers market, hard to tell if in phase 3 or 4, but things will start swinging the other side pretty soon.Third, look for value ad opportunities.

This, of course, is not a static number but simply a reflection of a point in time during this cycle. 

Now, if it was a 1.8x EM over 20 years, you would know this was a bad investment, but if it was in 14 months (like my first full cycle investment in this space), you would know it was an amazing deal.

Being able to spend as much time with the people I love and focusing on what lights me up inside (nature, rock climbing, volunteering, cycling).The niche that my girlfriend of 3-years and I feel suited for is rental property investing - more specifically - house-hacking multi-family homes using an FHA loan.

I would just love to hear any insights on how to get creative or potential different strategies to the traditional house hack that others have used when buying rental properties in a rather expensive market cycle. 

Also, depending on your personal/family situation, you could purchase a duplex to live in for one year, then rent it out and purchase a new one and keep that cycle going.

Daniel,Welcome to the land of cycles!

The Buy and Hold thing takes ten to twenty years to fruition, depending on what point in the Real Estate Cycle you buy to fix up and if you can buy multi-family to start with.