Sarah - You made a prior post about wanting to house-hack in NJ.There are unique tax laws when it comes to house-hacking as you purchased a personal residence and an investment property.When choosing an accountant, make sure they are familiar with NJ State taxation as it is one of the more complex ones in the nation.

Seattle has very complex traffic poblems, so people try to find the least troublesome route to work.

I guess he would say that starting with a small apartment complex would be better?

Last year we purchased a mixed use business complex with light industrial/office warehouse "flex" spaces in the front of the parcel with road frontage and then boat & rv storage on the rest of the property. 

In time we will tear these homes down and build an apartment complex.

But I can see where an appraiser would compare ranches and bungalows equivalently.I think the situation can be more complex than just a declining market.

We actually used this to get into our first apartment complex.

I'm almost have enough money to put down on a down payment on a multi unit complex...

We purchased a newly renovated condo conversion about 5 years ago and it cash flows nicely enough that I've considered picking up another unit in the same complex.

I have been looking at this market for a couple of years now for complexes of 200 units or greater, and still can't lock one in to meet our required returns.