The mindset of changing your spending habits to investments rather than liabilities for the rest of your life is all that you really need to be successful in this.

In my experience, for a ground up, high risk deal like this it would be a waterfall like the following;-  8% preferred return for investor- return of investor capital- catch up contribution to sponsor to equal 8% of their investment- something like 30-70 split till 15% IRR- 50-50 after thatThere would be some 2-5% sponsor fees off the top.That is what you can get from an experienced sponsor with decades of success and billions in management   If you want some examples check out the PPM on CrowdStreet or RealCrowd to see real life examples.

To echo the comments here, if in your personal name, good credit, and a healthy down payment, you should have fixed options rather than simply portfolio or ARM products. 

Is an MFR (8-plex) useful life considered to be 27.5 yrs like SFR?

I thought it was in good shape, inspector estimates it has 1-5 years of life left, and may develop leaks soon.

Vallejo, Richmond, Stockton, San Leandro, Hayward... all areas local to me that are like that, with 4plex loan limits well north of $1m & still 5% down with PMI that drops off once you have the equity (unlike FHA where it's "life of loan" and you'd have to refinance in a rising rate environment to drop the mortgage insurance).

We also have a healthy personal savings, 401Ks, etc., but I'd rather leave those alone. 

Like with many professions and life itself not everyone is great and more often than not they are average to below average. 

"Set for Life" may answer some of your questions on where to start saving. 

I have heard and experienced that guests want the cabin experience and to feel they are escaping from reality back to a time when life was simplier.