We are also looking in the East Texas area (around the I20 and I30 corridors and down towards Athens) for single family and small multifamily. 

Also, the short term rental took all of my capital so down payments will be hard. 

-"commercial" local/regional tiny house builders will offer some financing option or another, find someone local in your price bracket and work with their financing-park models can be financed through dealers/(etc), and small ~400 or 600 sq ft singlewides, although getting spendy, perhaps, could look attractive once you factor in the negative of anything smaller being tough or impossible to conventionally loan down the line.

If you put 30% down in pretty much all the properties I have analyzed I'm still going to be negative.

I have a lot of people come to me after having gone through one of these "enlightenment" sessions/ training and all I have to say to them is "good luck" and here is a number of somebody who will sell you down the river in the guise of helping you!   

I was debating should I do 4 plex or duplex with what I can make a down payment above between 35-40% to start with ?

The mortgage rate can always be refinanced when the rates drop back down which they are very close and will start to drop this year.

@Julianne Salamone I'm a Canadian now living in Florida and investing full-time down here. 

That's the correct answer, commercial mortgages are a lot more flexible about down payment sources, etc, than home loans, but pragmatically (loan requirements aside) you need to bring SOMETHING to the table for anyone to want to bring what THEY have (down payment etc) to the table.

I've seen the ups and downs and ups again, but I'm far from all knowing.