The owner had died and the place was in shambles.  

You could either continue to house hack or start looking at non-owner occupied investments if you end up liking where you're living.

I credit my parents and their experience as small business owners for instilling in me a strong sense of independence balanced with a desire to create and provide opportunities for myself and others.

Crappy phone pictures and original owners had stuff everywhere.

As owners of vacation rentals and experience working in house with large hospitality developers, we have a large toolkit to be of help.

Non owner only 1-4 units in location they like.

If the average days on the market for recently sold properties is relatively low and they are selling close to the listing price then the data is telling you that the risk of purchasing, renovating and reselling quickly is relatively low, despite the crime data.Establishing local relationships and having a team on the ground that you can trust can mitigate the risk associated with a potentially bad neighborhood.Regarding West Englewood- We sold a property in that neighborhood in the fall for an absentee owner.

I am interested in using a 1031 Exchange to go from 2 non-owner occupied single family homes to one owner occupied duplex, where I live in 50% and rent out 50%.

A couple of clarifications: if you're only putting 5% down on the property to purchase it is likely an owner occupied loan.

We incur cost to collect late rent with phone calls, credit reporting, emails, texts, owner calls, etc...