mother-in-law, mother-daughter, jack-and-jill, 'Summer Kitchen' and/or maid's quarters yada yada  - as many mansions and other estates traditionally do -  if its a SFD that means per code/ordinances etc u cant rent separate tent dwelling/apartments within it - only maybe a room or so.thats why instead, large SFDs with a duplex layout (or maybe even a 'back house') to spare will 'rent out a room' to avoid grossly breaking zoning and C of O rules for a single fam dwelling. of course that means either the kitchen is inherently shared or one of the persons (ie, a college student, or a raw vegan) simply does not need access to a traditional kitchen whatsoever.

Hrs also a firefighter, yea small town, practically know everyone or at least know of them.

I live in a apartment in a college town and I've never heard our all girl neighbors being loud.

At that price range consider perhaps Palmdale, Palm Springs,  etc...for many practical reasons.  

I practiced law as a biotech IP litigator on downtown Boston before jumping to RE full time.

It's a breeze to lay, in the past, if someone breaks open a box and hands me the piece I can lay about 200sqft per hour.It's practically indestructible for tenants, but it has one achilles heel which is cat piss.

The only experience I have is purchasing my home and taking the first half of the Realtor's Class in College.

You can use fancy words such as 'using leverage to enhance returns' etc. all day long, but the fact remains: if as a client I loose 50% of my premiums to commissions and fees I don't care what kind of leverage I gain as a result, it would practically be impossible to recover my losses. 

I ran home, woke up my at the time girl friend who was a college student and worked nights - I told her we were going to go buy a house (we were not yet married and we had next to nothing in the bank at the time).

I am in my first year of college and have no real-estate investment experience.