Therefore I’ve decided to take the David Greene approach and invest out of state but again I’m not sure if that’s the right move while starting out. 

Given that this is my only investment property, and it was owned for such a short amount of time last year, I've been on the fence about whether I need a CPA, or if I'd be able to handle filing taxes on my own with TurboTax (curious to hear others take on this).I decided to test out TurboTax first to see how I do. 

Me and my brother decided to take the leap of faith and purchased our first home to rehab and flip!

The owner didn't develop this because it would have pushed the property into the commercial realm at 5+ units and he wanted the next owner to have the flexibility to decide this.

If you do decide to rent to them, which again I would not recommend, give them a month to month lease so that it will be easier to get rid of them if things go bad.

I have been reading up on real estate investment and finally decided that I felt it was time to take the plunge.

@Christine H.To me, it would be a dealbreaker.Buying a multifamily on the basis of price appreciation is speculation.House price could keep rising and you end up making money (recouping some of your loss in the meantime) or there could a downturn and you'll lose more money when you decide to sell in.If you go ahead with the purchase of that property, you would have to feed that property with cash _every_ single month.Any expenses that you failed to initially account for will have to come out of your pocket.Increasing the rent might be difficult especially if you have tenants who have been living in the property who many years, because of the rent control.

Decided to purchase as is.

My strategy is to buy and hold, so if the market does decide to dip down I should be alright since Im in it for the long haul.  

The child cannot be a consideration, for fair housing.We have split the vacancy costs with tenants who have a later move in date.Agree that a scoring system helps decide and document an unbiased decision.I would prefer the couple that doesn't have an expiring visa, if they have a track record of staying at addresses more than the length of the remaining visa.