I'll keep looking, of course.If I was a pure return investor, I'd be hands-off. 

I'd love to leave the W2 job opportunities behind and purely focus on real estate, however I understand that it takes money to make money and will use the project management experience I have to rack in as much start up cash as possible to fund my initial investments.This is where I begin...

As a pure investment, you are right, it doesn't look good. 

As we have gotten more successful we have been able to buy pure rentals with my income (we are duel income but live off one) and the profits from our house.

I realize of course that I cannot expect the rent to be pure income.

We have subsequently bought more personal and pure rentals. 

We also buy pure rentals.

We should jump in the business through pure faith

This is purely a negotiation between you and the lender. 

In addition to size you'll need to consider things like the below Apartment categories to choose from: Student Housing – Off campusSenior Apartment communityClass A, B, or C Market rate apartmentsLow Income Apartment community Class C-/DIn my opinion the best size is going to be an Institutional Grade Asset (IGA) containing 250 Units or more, Class B, or a Class C asset in a Class B area poised for repositioning the asset to a Class B product, and its a pure Market Rate Asset.