Again, I plan to focus on systems and management and contract out as much as reasonable.

That could mean hiring a professional property manager, who hopefully already has the systems and people in place to manage better than you could.

O, your county might have GIS data, which is a mapping system that will show you aerial photos and property lines, and sometimes they link to their assessor too.

Was thinking to eventually move to a “virtual front desk” (as Brian page calls it) when I got my second unit and created a guide/systems.

The system is set up so that to establish credit you will need to prove you can use debt wisely.

The system is just frustrating and confusing and obviously I have no idea what will actually happen. 

I would say you need at least 50k in repair funding to be safe.You are jumping from investing in a single-family home, easy and doable, to 7 units, 7+ tenants, 7+ heating systems, 7x the plumbing, 7x the electric.

@Jason Appel I view deal criteria and a checklist [I call this due diligence] as two separate things, and I use the same system for every single deal.

The system can be very glitchy and can take quite a long time to notify us of issues. 

I'm a very systems-thinking type person which is why as I'm trying to navigate this investing decision for myself I'm thinking in terms of best practices and abstractions that probably seem odd or out of place to some people. :)