Take every opportunity you can get to visit another investors project ans pick his or her brain about the repair numbers.

My wife and I have the opportunity to keep our current home and rent it out while we purchase a new primary residence.

For me it would really depend on the numbers for that property and what I intended to do with it later. 

I have approached by Ash Hoss at New Western and he approached me with a Sell and Buy opportunity and l would appreciate any feedback.

I have an opportunity to buy 5 duplexes for 500K (5@100K each).

If you do not intend to move back your best option would actually be to sell if you want to invest the equity.

With an opportunity like that you may want to consider this area for now. 

I intend to buy and hold.

I get more use out of big data in other investment categories, which provides a nice baseline for the kind of returns I should expect on real estate, before it's too much effort.Granted, there are a million opportunities out there.

@Andreas Thuresson like @Jennifer Hyman said the opportunity is limited in north suburbs unless you are going far north suburbs near Wisconsin.