They can be removed easily, but not accidentally.

You could easily show it on a balance sheet as part of your net worth, but sitting in cash?

In my state, that could easily be construed as property management, and you need to have a brokers license to legally do that.

I would build a SF which I can easily do in $400K and can sell it for $400K.So, by this logic I feel like Am Fam is better in case of both total and partial loss but I am not 100% certain.

. (~1.13%)Taxes: 4kInsurance: (Haven't sourced yet, nothing unreasonable).I know the area well and already own a property nearby, it's a good area, suburb of a university town, almost no crime, and rents easily.

Always concentrate first online, this way you can easily capture your local market cherry picking your leads and making money off the ones you are not interested in taking down. 

However I was not told that retirement assets are typically used to cover the 6 months of costs, which I easily have in my 401k.

I can figure out market rents and my cost to own pretty easily. 

My contact could easily handle the duplex and the company could take the 10 unit.

Extra deposit, and per week use if they want to use it,  on the pontoon for use and it doesn't have to be glamorous, just dependable and good size is what matters.There's enough available up by you that you could find a good deal easily.