I'd say house hack, be in one unit, rent the others for the best rates.

My father owns (3) 2 family units.

So I can for certain tell you that in 12 states you must be State licensed and NMLS registered to do any loans on 1 to 4 units. in the other state to do loans for commercial purposes so lend to LLC..

We are closing in on the dead line for lead based paint inspections for rental dwelling units...."

That is TOO BIG for a single rental unit.

Even in a mediocre market, if you have a great agent and a great PM, you will outperform a great market with a mediocre PM and agent.That's also why I think it makes no sense to invest in 17 different markets: you don't know much about any of them, you have to build a network of people in every market, the law is different in every State and it's physically/economically impossible to visit any. (1-4 units anyway, large commercial is different). 

I have one 57 unit in Mentor, 8 apartment complexes in Painesville too.  

Investment Info:Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Now it's apartments.com and I'm up to 6 units on there, works perfectly fine and it's free.

Their slide deck, 85 pages is on their website, They believe that they will increase the properties NOI by 45% over 5 yr hold, mostly through rent increases after doing 5K interior upgrades in all 252 units, thus adding 19 million to value of property.