@Matt Powershello. pick a place where you want to live, and house hack there. 

What is the compelling reason for them to pick you, with your competitive rates, over someone else they've already been using with competitive rates? 

Because I will never go into anything that is losing intentionally it's like asking me to choose A or B: take this 50k check or write a random 50k check to a politician.

Quote from @Mathius Gazi: I picked up a two family last summer in New Haven and it is doing absolutely fantastic.

If I would have used competent management, the manager that I picked and vetted, then it would have cash flowed, assuming they could have filled the vacancies.The big lesson I learned is that the property manager selected can make or break a deal. 

A couple problems dividing a property and selling in a “Timely” manner and then picking exchange properties of equal or greater value than the lots you sale.  

I picked a mentor and a team to follow and the rest worked out

The 1% rule is best only used as a quick and dirty evaluation used to pick which property you plan on running additonal calculations on.

Instead of piecing together information from random online sources, you get a cohesive learning experience.4.

As a MF agent who spends a large amount of time calling apartment owners (or rather, numbers purporting to be apartment owners), please believe me that reaching out to random run down buildings owners is unlikely to get you any deals.