I intend to begin visiting various banks and credit unions in the area to look into traditional lending numbers and begin to line-up financing.

When you invest in real estate, for example, and want to maintain reserves, some should be in either cash or a comparable asset such as a money-market or CD, but you can easily put excess reserves and earnings from real estate into traditional stocks, funds, etc. as well - it doesn't just have to sit there.  

Yeah, Seems the traditional route would be to pay off debt, repair credit, save, and get a traditional bank loan.

Whereas with a fixed lease, you'll be required to pay whether you receive payment from the sub-tenant or not, such as with a traditional lender.

What I found was several traditional multi-family properties but there were also a large number of listings in which there were 3 SFR homes bundled together and being offered as a package.If an investor wanted to purchase one of these property bundles, how does a bank view the properties for financing? 

So traditional FHA i need to wait till 2017.

You won't be able to get a traditional 80% or 90% LTV HELOC like with a primary residence, but I'm sure you can pull some of your equity out one way or another.  

Buying a property with a tenant in place traditionally means any type of construction will at the very least be more complicated as the tenant and their stuff is in the way.  

Traditional bank, creative, land contract, lease option, master lease options, portfolio lenders, and etc 

My new job's 401k I will likely keep traditional, and this other one I would like to buy properties with.