I have a project in Chicago that is a 3 flat the I just finished gut rehabbing and it now has tenants in all units.  

Yeah st.a market is not easy to get into right now, only properties seem to take a boat load of rehabbing.

i want to end up in multi family homes in the long run, but i have no money down, no money for vacancy,repairs,rehab, etc.. my idea was to start with a single family home(easier) with good equity, live in it. but fix it up a little & house hack to pay my mortgage. then a year or two down the road pull out the equity or even sell and purchase a multi family home that way ill have more money to back me up. how does that sound as a first investment? 

@Jana CainNeed more info- Purchase price- Condition - Market Value- Are you adding value (rehabbing)May have more questions after these.

1) how do I get an accurate rehab cost?

It tends to be  significantly more than a typical cost estimate for a sub It is always a good rule of thumb to judge rehab costs by if they have to come out and handle the scope of work or for lack of a better word everytime "they touch" the work your costs go up. 

Bad tenant. Went through eviction process. Got property back needing about 25k of work to sell. Wife wants to sell. I could fix it up to rent again and have a $350 a month positive cash flow. Owe $80,000. If I put $25...

I used my usual hard $$$ lady so I could do a 20 day close (which is how I got the deal, they needed out fast) and I was able to finsh my rehab and get it rented out under my time frame and under budget.

Anyone rehabbing in the area?

That’s okay, that was only all of my rehab budget anyways.