@Jon Coleman You have a lot deeper background than I could assume - and your heart is at the right place!

Hello, I am a newbie looking to dive into the world of Multifamily Real Estate Investing and not sure the best way to leverage my assets.

I've been following the likes of Dave Ramsey since my booster seat days (which makes me slightly hesitant on diving in on a house-hack) and I love to watch Graham Stephan.

Which is precisely what my business partner and I are finding right now, which field to dive into. 

Lauderdale / Miami beach / or even West Palm Beach area) I'm in the same position and have really been on the search, but being from out of country - I have gaps in market presence so I know id be spending hours on diving into market research though thats not a problem necessarily since it means there are "good options" not just one.

I bought my first place in San Diego in 2004 - took a huge dive, but held on for dear life, and now we have a VA loan on our Carlsbad home that we purchased for 960, and is probably worth around 1.5MM.  

While diving for deals I stumbled across an investor who was offloading his properties.

Any tips on pressing this a bit deeper?

Pick a town or two in NJ within an hour or so and dive in.

Digging in a bit deeper the only extraneous fees I see are:Lender fee/points = $1,419Settlement statment = $600 (this is usually 150-250 in my market, so it's possibl 600 is a locally normal rate, but dang)The taxes and insurance are controlled by dat gov'ment and you, respectively.