There were a couple 'wins' with regards to items that were handled well, but for the most part it took nearly as much of our time to deal with things, and tied our hands with regards to being able to properly / responsively service our tenants when things came up. 

Hey @Andrew Smith I was in your shoes a few years ago.

If you were in my shoes, what would you suggest my family do? 

A duplex to 4plex will usually have better cashflow (leveraged 25%) but I dont know your market.I wouldnt tie up 85k to make 6-800 a month net unless you have more capital to keep flipping and ability to purchase if deals come up.With multifamily(5+ units)id say stay away from anything under 10 units but again depending on your market.

This will provide less out of pocket cash with a goal of refi in 2 years to pull out some of the capital tied up.This will get me to the roughly 20% COC.

One issue you have now for you guys that use these folks.. is that with so many a lot of them dont know a deal so they tie them up for way more money than anyone will pay.. not sure that helps the market as a whole.. 

(As an example, it's common to see something saying that if there's a delay in closing because of something on your end, you'll get charged a steep per-day penalty, but if it's a delay due to something on their end, there's no penalty whatsoever - they can usually string you along for months and keep your deposit tied up, with no consequence.)

A question I would ask myself in your shoes is "what am I doing to attract the wrong clients?"

Use HELOC if you want to flip or BRRRR....use cash out refi if you are going to tie the money up in long term hold.

So found a pretty solid deal that is for sale by owner, but all my funds are tied up on another deal.