About 400 acres in total, covering 4 parcels with 4 different owner groups. 

From what I've seen both as an REI myself and the owner of a bookkeeping firm that serves REIs, it's very hard to qualify for lending using a rental portfolio's income.

Look for active, pending, and sold flips, and find out who the owner is by skip-tracing the address, or you could simply call the listing agent.

on zillow and realter I have found and did numbers on and picked the best deals and was talking to the agents and all about the owner and the property learning you know.

Are you planning on owner occupying and doing a house-hack?

Most large property owners and Property managers make it part of their Insurance requirements. 

I see small commercial in the same city that trade between 5% and 18% cap rates because net income isn't the only factor for small investments where the owner may do a portion of the work to operate the property and the buyer will use employees.

*The subject property has 1-4 units and one is owner-occupied.

I am a NC coastal STR owners as well. 

I'm not sure what the right path is, but I've been reading about investing in owner-occupied, multi-family properties.