All 4 of the units are rented at $800 per home ,but market rent for each should be $1700.

I have seen 20 unit properties on the MLS with a standard agent that is selling single family homes, and I have seen 6 units on Loopnet with brokers that only focus exclusively on (fill in the threshold) type listing.  

Cashflow will usually play out better when you scale aggressively to 50+ units and plan to hold long term.

If they later said they didn't want to move in or couldn't, we would have them pay rent through when we re-rented the unit, because it wasn't rented due to their decisions.Since they never picked up keys, they don't have possession, so I don't believe an eviction would be necessary.

But without going into details, the sole remaining property, a 4 unit multi-family in FL, is stable and turning a profit.

We were not immune as we lost about 20 units, but they were either owners with unreal expectations and/or underperforming units due to not being well located/renovated/lacking amenities etc. 

Biggest thing I can recommend is hiring a legit management company that will take landlords who don’t own a lot of units seriously.

The idea is that the rents on the other units cover the cost of the whole property.The way this would work is that you need an apartment with three or four bedrooms.  

People are back and forth about background checks but if you rent a unit I do one.   

Or should we buy multi family units first, but what if they need some work on them?