Use rules to establish the rest for categorization; you can put the books on a high degree of auto-pilot.

Short term, I am interested in single and multi family properties. 

The only sticky point is how California (assuming that's where you plan on doing deals) views the advertising of property you don't own.

The only exception to that would be if they had gone out of pocket to buy expensive advertising for your property.

I would have them both apply, pay the application fee and see if the second person is really better or not.You could tell applicant number 1 that they are in the qualification stage but that property is still being advertised until you sign a lease.

On a large multi-family property with numerous tenants where the work doesn't impact any of them, you may not need to. 

If you buy a multi with an FHA, how quickly can you get the next one?

I’m most interested in small multi family house hacking and I’m looking for recommendations on Realtors who specialize in this in my area.

I would budget somewhere between $1000 and $1500 annually for a multi in Delco.

They've set guidelines for their comfort levels on things like:  Location, Property type - SFH, Multi-family, Apartment complex, commercial, other - etc.