We're handling two of these for owners right now, one just passed final inspection, the other they came up with their 3rd set of repairs:(If your home is north of 10 Mile, your rent should be too high to qualify for S8.

The seller falling off the radar has a high likelihood, I never thought of that.

Traditional Duplex/Triplex/Quadplex: I grew up with plans to buy a plex and house hack it, ever since I got into REI in high school.

With historically high prices and last year's rate increases, you're left wondering ... what comes next?

if you're looking for high-cashflow areas, for LTRs, the midwest seems to be the place to be. but if you're doing MTR or STR strategies, the shenandoah area might be the next hot spot for mountainous STR markets. wholesaling is a ton of work up front & i feel like a smaller % of people succeed in it, vs the larger % of people who succeed with actually buying rental properties. 

But if you're buying from normal sellers (i.e. not banks or institutions) you can use the inspection to justify a resolution of unacceptable conditions and have them fix a few things or get a price discount.On fixers, they likely won't give any discount, but it's also very important to know what you're getting into.

The risk of negative cash flow here comes from the high leverage though, not from the market.

My area has a strong economy, high rental rates, and a very large military and civil service presence.

3) If I can find a private money lender to do a 2nd mortgage, they will need a high interest rate.

They are highly encouraged with financial incentives to get renewals.