I am familiar with Tampa too because I used to live there and am now there constantly because my daughter is stationed there.  

I am in the Air Force and I am stationed in Tucson, AZ.

So the reason I was asking is because I should be PCSing (getting stationed) soon and was curious about what my options could be in buying multi family instead of a single family home.

One of the ideas that I'm evaluating is to acquire a small piece of property within the city limits near a train station of local towns such as Farmers Branch, Carrollton, Lewisville, Plano, Euless etc,.

She did at one point, but unfortunately they’re stationed in Japan for a few years, so they won’t be able to be there :/ Thanks for the book suggestion!

Since they spent most of the time when they were state side in either Galveston or College Station, they bought a duplex here in Galveston and rented out the bottom.

I went through this process when I decided where to retire.At a high level, I used financial media, Wikipedia, and local news (many TV stations stream their local news broadcasts) to select a state and city.At the neighborhood level, I used CrimeReports to get a feel for crime and real estate listings to get a feel for the type of housing in the zip code.Then it's boots on the ground to home in on a specific choice.

I know there’s one big company that’s on every radio station.  

My 380 goes in my pocket and I don't have to worry about scaring the crap out of that kid behind the counter at the gas station every time the wind blows.

I will be having the owner of the largest residential cost seg company on our radio show in 2 weeks, so tune in to get some information on this topic directly from the source expert as I am not an expertt in this process.The radio show is local to us but streams live on the net from the radio station website: www.hometownstation.com