As a single investor not operating within a company entity I was curious if it seemed overkill to establish something like this but it seems to be worth doing just for the value of it and how inexpensive it is to do. 

I always look for a minimum of 2 upsides in an apartment building and preferably at least 3.Upsides can be improvement to occupancy levels, increases in incomes, decreases in expenses, dived and conquer, forced appreciation plays in capital expenditures, etc, etc.Buying a building that is already performing to just about it's highest levels will result in no upside, a very high ask price, and limited financing options.Again, these are just my opinions on the subject, and the areas you may be interested in may have some other strategies that are viable.

., then you can have post it notes with your message on it printed fairly inexpensively and walk your own streets posting them.

The work that you do now will be relatively inexpensive compared to the added value you will create, in my opinion.I'm glad you enjoyed the post that you referred to.

Building relationships, defining business strategy and raising money -- these are the thing that ultimately can't be outsourced for any reasonable amount of money and hence what I would suggest focusing your time on.The rest of the stuff you can easily and (relatively) inexpensively hire out...

Sometimes taking the laptop to the local coffee shop is another inexpensive piece of advertising  you can do.

Our choices seem to be:1) Refinance to a 30 year mortgage at a higher interest rate (which might not be so bad since we have been paying down the mortgage heavily).2) Purchase a duplex (townhouse) and house hack, allowing us to boost our savings by drastically cutting monthly expenses, then selling our current house.3) Do nothing with our current house/mortgage and use the cash we have saved to buy an inexpensive multi-family (will still need financing).

Doesn't sound like a deal after closing cost, $5K in expenses, repairs etc to me.

@Taylor Reichert ..View interior and get a better idea of what it cost for repairs..If you can do most of the repairs this might be a great place to start..Keep repairs and purchase to 10K...Add a few inexpensive bells and whistles..ceiling fans, tile bath/kitchen..ACV for insurance as opposed to replacement cost for insurance is much cheaper...Rent it for $550...If it's nice you can rent it...Quality rentals at affordable prices are in demand!..

I would also contend that the more desirable homes have less in expenses as an overall percentage of rent collected.