Besides it being much slower start up to self-fund, why not use cash instead of financing to avoid the risk? 

If you refinance keep in mind you can get up to 80% LTV even as an investment rental. 

A park I have in Nebraska was just  affected when the Village wrote up new laws for mobile home parks.

How do others set up management and maintenance to scale up to 10, 20, 30+ units without using a full service property management company and still having a full time job and not taking away from family at home?

I did end up getting offers for a surplus lines residential policy, and then landed on a business owner policy through Vermont Mutual.

I looked up the lot minimums for Shelby County, and these seem to be 15,000 square feet with a 100 foot width.

Everything is dropped into the right categories and assigned to the right properties because I have it set up this way.

Hello Paul,I think you need to look into the world of DSCR Rental loans, most of these loans are set up on 30 Fixed rates, you can also do hybrid Interest only loans as well. 

In my experience, when you rent by the room with shared common spaces, you end up with lower quality tenants and higher vacancy in the long run.

Not always the case, but we see a large majority in our area. the way, I see this going – if wholesaling will now require a license, they will either be large groups of vigilantes conducting this anyway, or a severe lack of deals for agents who assume that properties will just show up in front of them.