At the end of the day if you’re a self made millionaire no one is going to criticize you for doing these things.  

If the furnace is separate from the unit, I also have an inspection clause allowing me to inspect for necessary repairs (leaky faucets/toilets), etc, etc quarterly. 

We own six units ourselves and know about renovations and take pride in where we live, especially when it's someone else's.We're looking for a SFH to rent in the Valley or West LA. 

I've thought about buying a duplex/quadplex (which are few and far it seems like) and living in one unit while renting out the other(s).

This would not be an ideal situation for any tenant and I feel I need to put the idea of house hack aside unless I can find a unique property that has multiple standalone units, one large enough for my Brady Bunch and potentially several other units to offset the note.

what I was thinking I can do is move my family into the empty unit after the lease is up and attempt to furnish the unit I live in currently ...

And most folks dont truly understand what its really like being Self employed. 

I'd recommend pushing density to 3 or 4 they all finance the same. we picked 3 because of the 35' height allowance in our area. here is a rendering to help paint the picture. our target appraisal value is 550k on the first few and pushing them to more than 600k as we sell some or keep them but if you are the only one building multifamily it's important to highlight the importance of appraisal and selling or disposing of some assets to create comparable to be used. our market has very little 2-4 units built because of economies of scale we are the only builder doing this style and we control the full process and it is a high barrier to entry where we are at. we are able to build at a lower cost now than almost buying a duplex because they are so small. each one is 668 sq ft total of 2004 sq ft. 

Faking a foreclosure would require thousands of dollars in fees, months (if not years) of time, an incredible degree of knowledge of state and national foreclosure rules and procedures and balls the size of a house to expose one's self to the prosecution that would more than likely result from the fraudulent action.

Source: Mortgage Rates: 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States (MORTGAGE30US) | FRED | St.