Although for many this may seem as "competition", I don't believe the margins on the properties they will be offering will be large enough for investors to even consider.

The reason to seek out BRRRR deals is to preserve capital for the next project so you aren’t waiting years to scale.

So, if you are ok with scaling more slowly, or if you have a lot of cash on hand, it's a perfectly good way to invest.

Find a large duplex for your family. 

Most rowhomes in philly have either a small or large backyard and many can be accessed through the breezeway like yours.As for the roofdeck...

From what I understand, its how many investors are able to scale up. 

I would like to know if I should be going for large brand name or small boutique brokerage?

However, this could be a trap if a large loss to lease is apparent in the financials due to artificially high market rents.

Every bank is different so there is no "should" but like I said earlier, on my last loan of ~71K my loan costs was about ~2K, it won't scale down much from there as you're about at minimum overhead, but getting the loan won't be a problem.

Let's assume I agree and accept the full rent amount - I will get essentially large lump sum into my account.