For example, I was thinking maybe I should wait to have people sign any kind of lease until the summer so I don't have all three units turning over in November (not the best rental season).Thanks everyone and thanks to the BP community for inspiring me to take the plunge!

not sure how that plays in .My landlock situation was quite complicated.. and Chicago missed it.. they have been 2 years battling to get it done for me.. we had a neighbor and a state owned trail to cross. turns out the state owned trail there is NO way to force that in Oregon.. but the buyer for the property is the local metro open space. so the state kind of rolled over .. but they did not have to.. then we had the neighbor that we had to sue.. 

Here is the common problem I see with these rules.

If a common practice in your market that's likely the easier way to go.  

This is pretty common on tax sale properties.   

Photographer is kind of a TOUGH GIG these days.

What kind of neighborhoods are your units in?

I drive for dollars occasionally, but I don't believe it is yielding enough results as small multi's are not very common in my target areas.  

After doing that you can sell the house for a lot more than you bought it so with like kind investments you have positive cash flow and appreciation. 

I found one called ( Rainbow Knolls) old subdivision platted in the 20s but because it was under one common ownership  ( 104 lots) assessor on the assessors plat map showed it as a 15 acre tract.. we made an offer like it was one building lot.. then we got our HML to put 104 individual loans on each lot to the tune of 3k per lot we used that 300k to build all the roads and infrastructure.. we recorded each loan individually which caused the assessor to reestablish the plat. without having to go through the platting and land use .. planners did not like it I can tell you.. but now a days out west this is quite common and there are easier ways to do this.. in Oregon for instance they call it a lot confirmation.. there are all sorts of shadow lots lying underneath lots in the city.. takes 60 days and a few hundred bucks and a current survey and you can split lots as long as there is a shadow plat that was recorded back around the turn of the century.