In industrial, my experience is clear heights, door count and size, loading dock access, and (probably not the case here) how perfectly level are the floors.I would also run a price sensitivity on how far rents may be able to drop to still make this worthwhile.  

Also, many times the rent is split unevenly bc of different room sizes.

As a self-employed 1099 individual, your best route is most likely DSCR.

I wanted to buy a mid size apartment because of the scalability.

The ones I manage total to 20 bedrooms.These rooms rent for between $125 to $225 per week depending on room size and amenities in the room (beyond basic amenities may include: Desk, Tv, private entry, tenant controlled AC, additional storage).This month after padsplit takes their 14.25% cut of the revenue I am recieving, from the units I own, $15,230 from 3 homes.

Actually more becuase now you are self-employed and have all of those pesky overhead costs. 

Know the strategy that you will employ and the numbers it takes to make a worthwhile return.  

A HELOC carries a higher rate over a shorter amortization usually 10 or 15 years and a mortgage carries a lower rate over a 30 year amortization offering a lower payment.You have to run the math in each scenario because the math differs based on a few things like Fico score, CLTV, Loan size, and time frame between purchase and refinance of new property.

Sometimes large employers will rent furnished apartments for their employees coming to town on a regular basis.Also, if you believe strongly in the appreciation of the house, how bad would the negative cash flow be if you did long term rental? 

These were custom homes & when the subdivision grading was done we did not know the size of the homes nor their driveway locations.