If you expand your search, with respect to distance, you may be able to find something more suitable.  

After all, it's the tenants who are interested in breaching their lease by breaking it (buying a house is NOT a legal reason to get out of a lease), not you.Now their finding what they may believe are suitable replacements doesn't automatically guarantee they are. 

Typical ranch style with desert landscape.So as a rental is $145,000 a decent selling price point?

and it seems that the variable cost of heating in the winter is chewing up the potential profits of most multi family properties on the market, so originally my plan was to invest and hold onto small two or three unit multi family properties, but now it seems like small single family homes, I'm thinking ranch style, are maybe better because it's not expected for me to pay any portion of heat, and if the property is on the smaller side it would be easy for the tenant to heat. 

They were so appreciative of the quality and style.

As for where to actually find the properties...every market and style is different.

My husband and I are considering upgrading to a bigger home and then renting our current cape style home in Boston.

You run into special issues when using multiple asset protection styles.

Depending on the area there are many Different styles of management going on in Hattiesburg.

For me personally, the investment really helped me be more aware of other styles and concepts.