My fiancé and will be married and that’s when our lease is up.

If you pay cash and therefore don’t have a mortgage you can make a good return but not enough to let a couple hundred grand just sit there.

Here are a couple articles that might help:https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/find-banks-fund-investments/https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/5-ways-to...

Find a local meet up in San Diego join an investment club and consider partnering/ mentoring on at least your first couple of deals.Happy to network and assist.

You mentioned a couple of times to stay away from the southeast coast in terms of buy and hold.

If you plan to marry her and stay together long term, which hopefully is the case as she is a fiance if she has credit card or other high interest debt that will be a better investment than RE. 

Currently, leaning toward buy and hold small multi family in B-C neighborhoods in Central Indiana, but not married to it. 

I would cash-out refi or even sell and do a 1031 exchange so that I could buy a couple properties and start the depreciation cycle fresh with those.

I would happily spend the extra couple thousand dollars to avoid this.

I have had a tenant in the past who vacated the property with a 30 day notice, but couple months prior to their lease expiration.