In a SFR people will expect larger rooms but renters may be willing to compromise.

I can only imagine, if buying a larger complex, that you must need to wait 1 year plus to force appreciation and re-fi

If you only have SFH now, it's probably worth considering liquidating those assets and 1031 exchange into something larger.

Larger regional and national tenants often bargain for a TA  and get it since the landlord is often presented with a multi year lease - like 10 yrs with several 5 yr options.

Beyond the first few properties, I would like to invest more aggressively in larger properties and alternative financing.I have been researching real estate for the past 2 years and feel like it is finally time to put my plans into action.

Depending on what you are looking for it can be a tedious task to find what you want..If you already know what you want in terms of addresses of the property you should just do the search yourself and invest some $$ into it..

Your initial impression of this tenant was correct and you were correct in getting a larger deposit and I bet you will need to use all of it before this is over.  

If so, you  open  yourself up to a larger pool of candidates.

The irony is I've scaled to larger than I ever would have been able to on my own, and my net income and net worth have both increased dramatically as a result.How much did you save? 

You're buying the future cashflows of the property so a corporate signature McDonald's is going to trade for a similar CAP rate across the country, all other things equal ( term remaining, scheduled increases, NNN or Absolute, etc.)If you are looking at some kind of local single or multi tenant building, then your local market will have a larger effect to factor for likelihood of replacing a tenant should they leave.