Do not cut any corners on a prospective deal to make it look better.Always do the math analysis and try to look at the prospective property before you submit an offer or at least have a clause in the sales contract that allows you some time (about 10 days) to make a detailed inspection without having a penalty that will hurt you too much.  

I've been couch surfing (read: bumming) the last year when I am back in the states, and I am incredibly grateful to my kind friends and family, but I can't tell you how old this is getting for all involved.So I decided to settle a bit for now, and find a reasonable home to live in that allows me to easily cover the mortgage, and at the same time continue to save more, and look for another property to buy and hold.

I'm definitely not trying to steer the appraiser, since of course that's not allowed.  

Another option: allow it to be free-standing with more, properly designed/installed support posts.

 I use Expensify to track my expenses and the app allows you to snap a photo, categorize, and label expenses and then you can just send your accountant (or yourself) an expense report at the end of the year.

I find that investing in Real Estate allows my creative side to emerge, especially when structuring a contract or finding valuable resources for financing real estate properties.Currently, I am purchasing as much real estate as possible in this (historically) saturated real estate market.

This year, our C corp had a very good year and we have a decent enough windfall which will allow me to take out the capital I would need to invest in my first real estate property (properties).  

Also as Dave mentioned, the easiest way to bring in a partner is to acquire the new property in a tenants-in-common (TIC) legal structure, which would allow for the 1031 exchange.  

If your doing bank conventional financing you can get around 9-11% ROI when factoring in vacancy, repairs allowances. 

They are hands-off, institutional grade real estate investments, and they allow you the option to diversify.