I was listening to one of the podcasts and this guy managed to do the same thing with combining Subject to's and Seller financing (Don't know exact details but there are many ways to get money for buying a house).As far as the property management, I think that doing the property management yourself (at least only in the beginning) is really good so that you get some hands on experience and then eventually be able to know what to look for in a property manager. 

Though the rent amount is in line with the area, your tenant pool is more limited, and there's a lot more space to maintain and get damaged, so your returns likely won't be so great.If you find that it's difficult to rent, I thought @Corby Goade's idea of converting it to a duplex is a good one if the building and zoning will permit it; alternately, you could knock out a wall to combine a couple of bedrooms to make it a 5/3 or even a 4/3 (or use some creative marketing - it's 5BR + office/den/whatever) to help make it sound more in line with norms.Hopefully you'll find a family that will want to rent it for years and years - it'll no doubt get torn up, but we all run that risk with our properties.  

This has an added advantage of the two of you being able to dispose of your interests independently, and probably a higher combined resale value.

I had toured the entire house with an architect just the month before for modernization planning, and while the house smelled like somebody was living there, it was not bad at all.

You can use multiple letters as long they add up to the amount needed and make it clear that you're going to combine them to pay for the property.

We financed with a combination of the remaining line of credit and a low interest credit card.

well, it sounds like you have thought things thru for the most part. but to combine heat and hot water will require you to have a boiler system, and those can be expensive. even thousands of dollars more than a conventional forced air furnace. that $600 a month is nice, but how long is it going to take to recoup your costs of installing boilers and water heaters in all of your units???

And if you pre commercial thin you can create the necessary ring counts and knots to jump into an export grade log which will bring 20 to 40% or more in value than a domestic log.So if you combine this with the same buying principals that most of us RE folks look for IE a deal day one..

In my past life I was a public safety officer (combined police and fire) for a city department in California. 

What if you did a combination?