The easiest way is to bring on a partner who has a lof of capital they are looking to deploy, but I always encourage having sufficient reserves.  

My question is should I stick to a SFH in my local market in a good area or South Jersey? 

I don't think I have enough capital/credit history to purchase a property through the LLC, I would purchase it under my own name. 

But of course, this all depends on your market and what your guests are looking for in 2- or 3-bedroom properties.

It seems like you can find Lakefront properties for under 500K and wanted to talk to any investors who own property there to get a sense of the market and what kind of numbers they are seeing.

The dude does not really seem to care much about charging us much higher as long as he gets his full 180k as he would if he'd list it on the market.

I just had a builder/contractor take over a build here for a client in the Cape Coral Market. 

If your goal is to have properties in markets that have weather you like, that's awesome, but you don't have to START there. 

My personal home almost doubled in value in 2 years and while many markets have gone down the last 6 months, we've been mostly flat.  

I'm particularly passionate about SFR in Detroit and other good markets in the United Stated.