Some investors disregard these rules and buy and sell using market conditions.To be more specific as to your thread, Duplexes and even Triplexes don't generally genereate enough cash flow and I'd stay away from them.

I want to improve communities through new development and make it affordable while also making great returns as well.

There are a lot more rules than I covered here in this post but double check everything against the handbook.

thanks Unfortunately, you can't depreciate the land, so you can only depreciate the improvements.

But no one says "it's our own internal rule," they say "it's Fannie Mae's fault!"

Where it can become really tricky is that I have heard of one instance where the delinquent owners didn't file the exemption then after the sale and 6 month period were able to claim some reason as to why they weren't able to file the exemption and were able to get their property back after improvements were made.The court does require that anyone redeeming a property pay 25% interest on the purchase price plus expenses to maintain and secure the property (not upgrades).

Or see if there are ways you can improve expenses since Cashflow can be improved by lowering costs or increasing revenue.Personally, I dont have enough experience to guess. 

We both have pretty demanding jobs, so a highly involved project might be out of scope for us but I won’t rule out fix and flip and BRRR.

In my commercial properties, which are smaller with mostly mom& pop type businesses, we generally negotiate tenant improvements as part of signing a lease with a new tenant. 

Our systems are good (there is always room for improvement, that Ill concede to).I do agree with your philosophy of having ones cake and eating it too... the day job is good, and Ill keep it... for awhile anyway.