If you plan to hold it then they are going to want to know if you will refinance it with a traditional lender.The benefit of using a hard money lender is that they will finance renovation costs and approve you based on your liquidity and the asset's ARV.

I like being in submarkets of larger MSA areas unless it's a town I intimately know. 

That would leave us with around $70k liquid cash.We rent an apartment month-to-month until we find a good duplex to purchase (ideally within 1 year).We house-hack the duplex until we accumulate enough cash to buy a SFH for ourselves (3-5 years).We retain ownership of the duplex and rent out both units.In my mind, this approach could "get the ball rolling", considering we can't afford to buy an investment property with our current circumstances, nor would we be able to for many years.What would you do if you were in the same boat?

.-  Some of the larger maintenance costs that capEx covers such as: are driveway, siding, and roofing/shingles is covered by my HOA. 

Could be anywhere....probably one of the larger cities....DFW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio. 

Depending on your situation and what you're trying to do, both options would allow you to hold onto your appreciating property and have liquidity to invest with.

The TIC setup would not be feasible for a smaller investor in a deal, but a larger investor would be, due to the extra steps required. 

You could try something like Bungalow if they cover that area, if not perhaps an agent that only manages a handful of properties instead of a larger company that already has their systems set up for individual units. 

Do people try and get a larger multi-family at this point?

I *wish* I could be househacking a fourplex, but I have a wife and a kid, so we needed a 3/2 and I couldn't find a fourplex with anything larger than 2/1's.