Given the relative level of experience of posters of BP posters, most are starting out and some have a bit of experience.

We are going to up our membership level so we can connect further on a 1 on 1 basis.

You could if they could easily be sold in 30 days on the open market.. but the locals they aren't going to over pay they are going to do what you did buy for 1 k and put 8k in them and have the same house for 9 to 10k... your all in 20k house is ( as us lenders like to say) bulk value or true wholesale value worth 10k maybe.But again its fun playing monopoly,, lets get a report after you have owned them 24 months.. that's what will be the telling sign.. you will have half your money back.Plus what most investors fail to put into their cash flow calculations is your cost to travel there and your time and effort to analyze this and then coordinate rehab.. and you have gone through what most do in Detroit ( already fired one PM) PM's that work in these low level areas are tough to find.. and many end up just walking away with the owners rent.. or lying about if they are rented or not...

You might have to deal with him on a different level, especially at first.  

You've grown your business to 10 or 20 houses and it's time to take your business to the next level...What are the options of scaling your SFR investment business?

Much of both Dodd-Frank and the Safe Act was written at a 50,000 ft level, with interpretation and implementation pushed off on states.My advice, if you're serious about pursuing owner financing, is to find a good RMLO to handle your buyer intake & qualification and the servicing of your loans.  

This is not a good deal on really any level. 

My wife and I have invested in relatively low end townhouses in MoCo, however we are finding it challenging to find multi-family in that area or any place close to DC within our price range/level of risk.Either we've felt uncomfortable with the expense of the multi-family properties or (perhaps incorrectly) equated the higher priced properties as a tradeoff of low cash flow and possibly higher appreciation (due to increasing rents) vs higher current cash flow and lower appreciation in the more remote areas.

Deeper searching showed that the couple was military (VA loan) , used a military financial institution.

Having the rent for an area you're not investing in won't help you much, frankly, since there's different factors that come into play to affect rent levels.