Hi Michael,I like your thoughts of building a large portfolio because it's very important in sub $100,000 markets like Ohio.A large portfolio = A safe portfolio.Personally, I've always been a big believer in buying with cash.Less is more.Once you gain experience and understanding the true income vs expenses of your portfolio.Then look at using leverage for faster growth.It takes many years to learn a market along with establishing a solid understanding of it's "in's and out's" from a people/team perspective.As investors we should always reverse engineer and protect the bottom line first and foremost before looking toward expansion and growth.My "cash only" mentality has served me well over the years in my businesses and real estate endeavors.Especially when things turned South and they always eventually do.Start slow, start small, buy with cash and build from there.Just my opinion and wishing you much successps.

The benefits to using available cash to fund multiples investments as opposed to paying all cash for one investment seem pretty self explanatory, but the largest benefits...especially in real estate...are likely the ability the spread risk across multiple investments and the ability to make multiple investments in a shorter period of time, allowing your cash flow, equity, and ultimately potentially your net worth to increase at a faster pace.To answer your question about traditional financing directly, yes you can obtain a traditional mortgage and put a large cash down payment down, essentially financing 'part' of the purchase price.

If you are looking to build money faster so you can do more upgrades, I would ask if you could rent out the 3 bedrooms all the time instead of just while you are away and then rent the 4th bedroom as well while you are gone.

I hope this proximity would allow building a stronger network and faster scale my investments.

I would not expect that demand to drive up the price in a crazy way but let's say there's some $700,000 4-unit properties in some markets that are sitting for a long time - those will sell faster. 

I do love the work ethic, side hustles are a great way to add income and make it faster to invest. 

Well, then clearly you aren't paying attention at all..The world is changing (and warming) and the effects seem to be accelerating much faster than anyone has anticipated.

They would probably pay (something anyway) faster and will turn around and bill back to the responsibile party,  in this case the tenant if they agree with what happened.   

Evaluate the rental market in your area to determine the optimal configuration for maximizing rental income.The choice between using cash flow from your current house to cover expenses or pay off the mortgage faster depends on your long-term financial goals and risk tolerance.

I thought about offering a credit towards the utilities and having the tenant cover whatever the remaining monthly utility bill would be as an incentive to hopefully rent this property faster, any thoughts or recommendations on this?