Use other peoples money and scale quickly with lots of strings attachedSounds like you're on choice A, so now its just a matter of sticking to fundamentals.

What would you do to quickly grow and scale this money?

To get any sort of scale, you need to start building joint venture relationships.

Making money, not scaling well though.  

My brother and I bought a duplex.I have been following BiggerPockets for a while now. My question is how should I go about getting my next deal, I’m looking for a 4-plex. I’m looking for another real life example of t...

not up.. the value tracks rents and fix costs.. in a market like yours its all about local knowledge and scale.. your just buying a business your not investing in real estate per se.. no different than running a storage facility etc.. value is all based on rents. 

Joel:There are people that do that, but it is not everyone's goal.Apartments definitely have an economies of scale. 

While they advocate that they have scale of magnitude and volume, I question that statement.  

Good thing you guys are far from me - we might all become drinking buddies and not accomplish anything good ;)On a serious note...I agree with you @Jay Hinrichs: to succeed with C & D properties, you got to be hands on and since we are vertically integrated (in house construction company)...we can make it work but also if you have the economies of scale with apartment buildings.

If you’re doing all this yourself, you aren’t leveraging your team and it will be harder to scale.