I will get in touch with both of you next week to pick your brains about your respective areas.

My first purchase will likely be 5-10 units, and looking in the $300-400k range.

May I ask the price range?

What areas are you specifically interested in I am a Broker and looking for myself as well are you looking for single family , multi units, or condos,  also let me know your price range, I may be able to help

The issue I'm having is the duplexes that are for sale are hovering around $200k range.

Hello - I am a new BP member interested in getting into real estate deals ranging from flips to fixer-up long-term rentals.  

I am working with a new investor that is considering multi families in the $2m-$3m price range. 

From this data, you can utilize a website bestplaces.net that will give you a breakdown of the percentage of homes that sold, in various price ranges, for a given zip code.

For the last 18 months, my salary has been just over 60K per year w/ my current employer, but this month, I got a big promotion (almost double my current salary to 120k).The tricky part of my situation, is that the promotion I got, is actually being paid to me from a partner (affiliated company) and I actually get two separate paychecks, both W2’s from each company respectively.

I would start here because these residential interest rates are significantly lower than other options (usually adjustable in the 2-4% range) in terms of the fees and interest rate.