I've had conflicting advice as to buy a house right away or rent an apartment for 6 months-1 year before buying.

you clean up and rerent apartment asap, but according to your standards. if there are any days tenant should have paid for, but didn't, AND unit was vacant, then you deduct those from sec deposit, assuming it is within you local landlord regulations.

We prefer to make the investment relatively close i.e. 2-3 hours flight max.We want to start small as this would be our first but start at a location where we can then buy more and bigger investments (like an apartment complex) once we have a local team and understand the micro-markets and details. have been considering buying something from roofstock.com to begin with. 

For example, I had 3 three bedroom two bath apartments in average condition.

I currently already own several multi family and a few apartment complexes.

I run a "rental arbitrage" business whereby I rent homes/apartments from homeowners in the San Francisco Bay Area, then furnish them and rent them out as 30+ day rentals to business travelers and make money (hopefully) on the spread.

I want a niche that sets me apart.

Buying an exsisting excavation company, for example, would be possible but could only exchange my property for property already a part of the business I’m purchasing.  

My old boss had it a part of his weekly agenda to take out 2 wholesalers every week.

We are happy to report about the recent cash-out refinance of our 174 Units Apartment Complex in San Antonio, TX.