And I would put single occupancy only per room in the contract as well... and then add an admendum of house rules. since verbal/oral contract is not really held high in court... if you can't sign the contract write away then use technology such as text message or emails or even voicemails. 

I'll be targeting single-family homes with good school ratings that I can purchase at a discount for one reason or another.

I am currently able to save around $2500/month and am wondering what some of your opinions are as far as a route to go for starting off in this area and market.I am either looking to find a duplex and house hack it, or start with finding a good single family deal and live in it for a year while building equity and then move to a duplex and house hack it.

We are now buying a single family for ourselves near by.

I worked alongside professionals as a "helper" With pretty much no construction experience, they put me on the dirty grunt work, cleaning rat poop, removing the old toilets, scrubbing down baseboards, etc. but as I was doing that, I was watching every single thing they did, and pestered them with tons of questions on how to do things and different techniques.

Not a single issue to date and saved a lot of money. 

So unless it has appreciated by a huge amount in the intervening year, you might be able to take most of the proceeds tax-free.https://www.irs.gov/faqs/interest-dividends-other-...https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stepupinbasis...https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/if-you-inh...Otherwise, if you live in it for another few months you could potentially qualify for the Sec 121 exclusion mentioned above ($250k single/ $500k married filing jointly).

A single unit rental has a 59/50 of not losing your money. 

Typically this is only for single family.  

Single-family home sales rose 9.1 percent year-over-year, with 8,108 units sold;Days on Market (DOM) for single-family homes remained unchanged at 48 days;Total property sales increased 8.5 percent, with 9,559 units sold;Total dollar volume jumped 11.4 percent to nearly $2.8 billion;The single-family home median price rose 5.9 percent to $243,500, reaching a July high;The single-family home average price also achieved a July record, rising 2.4 percent to $305,910;Single-family homes months of inventory was at a 4.2-months supply, down fractionally from 4.3 months last July, but nonetheless at the highest level since August 2017;Townhome/condominium sales rose 6.1 percent, with the average price up 6.9 percent to $215,110 and the median price up 9.3 percent to $165,000;Leases of single-family homes fell 1.9 percent with the average rent up 5.6 percent to $1,916;Volume of townhome/condominium leases dropped 6.6 percent with the average rent up 7.7 percent to $1,666.https://www.har.com/content/mls/?