Best bet for your friend is to buy a place that is easily convertible & to find an agent that knows what to look for.

I use a scratch-N-dent place outside of Philadelphia, PA (private owner, small company) and after my last appliance purchase back in April 2018, he said the same thing.. all appliances went up about $25-100 depending on size (so a standard 30" frigidaire SS went from $1500 up to $1600 now), etc. 

I have been thinking about strategies of growing my real estate unit portfolio in size, but any way I looked, I was running into limitations (high LTV for conventional loans, expensive real estate with low cap, 1031) but nothing felt quite right until I came across the BRRRR strategy.

Hey BiggerPockets,I'm interested in starting my real estate investing with small apartment buildings (around 5-12 units) in the Pittsburgh area but am having a tough time finding real estate agents who excel with these property types.Any suggestions on generating leads and finding agents who specialize in this apartment building size?

Sometimes its hard when you built a trustworthy and reliable team to not continually using them but you can always use them in different assets classes and investment types in the same general area for a good size of your portfolio.You live in a nice spot as Cincy and Columbus are only an 1 hour away but those markets are pretty hot right now.. and Indy has always been known for a solid rental market..

Will try and price it for average sized rooms.

The property is all zoned residential and had a single family house, 2 small apartments, and 2 good sized auto shops with office space.

Many people never make it this far.I bet you are learning a ton and with such a low purchase price, it won't break you.

Is this your first MF deal of this size?

You have land with an existing structure on it, raw land, land that has been entitled, etc.The topography of the land, any views,if it has streams, flood plains, endangered species, weird lot size, etc. can all have big impacts on value.