I was going along the house-hack/Nomad strategy with single family houses in north Denver for a couple years until I realized I wanted to go faster and decided to invest in multifamily properties. 

Ironically, home prices have actually risen faster during the worst pandemic in a century instead of getting cheaper.

The exchange will be the rate but the simpler/faster might be more of what you need.

I wanted to start with buy and hold because of the monthly cash flow, but flipping becomes attractive (at least to me) when you can pair up with someone with experience in that area and learn from them which I may have an opportunity to do, as well as being potentially more lucrative and getting a faster return.

Furthermore, Section 8 and other city programs provide opportunities for house-hackers to fill their vacancies faster, collect market rent, and passively collect guaranteed rent each month.Lastly, NYC as a whole is not much of a cashflow market (excluding high down payment deals) but house-hacking is still a solid strategy.

Where can I apply myself to see better faster results?

Although they both have their advantages, I would buy a MF home for a house hack over a SFH mainly because you can scale faster when growing your portfolio.

Inventory is definitely moving faster in the surrounding counties of Baltimore and DC.

I want to focus on MFH, but I felt like at least 1 flip a year would be able to keep my capital growing and would help me scale faster.

Our prospects are expecting an option fee of 5-10% of the intended purchase price (which is ultimately set by the investor but obviously the closer to 5%, the faster we can send you a buyer).