Do your home in all of the neighborhoods before picking one or two. 

Welcome to the site, you definitely picked the right resource for your education.

Thoughts on finding an investor or two to pick up ten properties or so in the next year?

I'll be picking them up this week. 

Items include a desk, a treadmill, and some other random crap.

There are so many niche areas of real estate investing that the most important is to pick yours and be good at it.  

If so, pick which unit you plan to occupy (usually the most tired) and make it a condition of sale that it be delivered vacant - the vendor can give notice to the tenant and they should be moved out prior to Close.If there are no provisions for owner occupant and the tenants are on annual or term leases, you will have to look at the terms of the lease w/r to notice.  

However I know  that's expensive so there might be a way to get someone else to pick up the legal tab.

@Demos Thanos  I would love to pick your brain about St.

Michael, The horrible situation described in the think progress article should be covered under the legal concept of 'lack of foreseesbilty'.I believe the surviving party who's name is on the lease inform the landlord he cannot be held legally responsible for a random act an committed by a government agency who actions resulted in the death of a friend who's presence at the residence at the time could not have been reasonably predicted to have produced an outcome that would have normally resulted in damage to the property owners property.