Look up Heather Brooks at 5th District Bank. 5D is local to the NOLA area and is a portfolio lender.

Sometimes it's just good to get the property start collecting rent and building your portfolio.

As your portfolio grows you may want to hire a PM anyways to free you up to continue finding more properties.You have a lot of choices and a lot of studying ahead, but it’s all good stuff!

I personally wouldn't over complicate your lending with commercial style loans (and guessing you wouldn't qualify unless you were doing some type of multi-family or portfolio project). 

I'd get it if it's for a portfolio loan, but wouldn't conventional loans all be...I can't think of the wording, but the same rates apply everywhere.

Initially we wanted to buy our own primary residence first, but after reading about real estate some more, I'm really wanting to get into house-hacking and over time building a portfolio of small multi-family residencies.

I’m thinking about buying a portfolio and would need to get 5+ investors together.

It is a great option for an investor that is looking to diversify a portion of their overall portfolio out of stock market investments.

After owning 2 rental properties with a bit of house hacking in LA, I feel that I should diversify my portfolio now that it costs more to invest in LA with less cashflow. 

Then we want to start to build our portfolio of good return "C+/B/B+ rentals" not too far from our "forever home".Here is our situation - - For livable rentals, I want it to be in a good neighborhood where we are comfortable living in there.