There are numerous houses that need significant upgrades to be what I would consider appealing, but I'm out of the area so I may not have a great bead on the market.You don't seem to have a job you're moving for so I suppose if it were me I'd prefer the western parts of the state, but Raleigh and Chapel Hill both have very nice areas, as do many other parts that other posters have already mentioned.

If that is the case, you may want to get a fat, not 1 or 2 but multi-mil, umbrella policy to save you some money instead of upgrading each of your properties' liability coverage.FYI, a while ago, numerous Bay Area restaurants were hit by lawsuit from a lawyer, https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfra... 

I wanted a low barrier of entry (FHA) to get into small multifamily investing and the value add to force appreciation element was also present as was the need of the out of state seller to sell.

Simply put, they are authorized by law to to assess regular fees that enable them to fulfill their fiduciary duty to maintain, protect, and preserve all of the common and limited common elements.

The best ones send out numerous quotes for "projects" and expect 1-2 per week.

While I told them I wouldn't make a decision until Sunday they called and texted numerous times most likely hoping to catch me before I got other applicants. 

I will say this, having recently been involved in numerous deals in the area on mostly the listing side, but also buying side, the offers are coming in way over list price because of so much competition.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sa...As a landlord in Oakland, I am subject to hearing numerous people on BP talk about how the laws here suck, don’t get me wrong they do. 

As far as timing goes, snow can slow you down some (depending on what you're doing (roofing, landscaping, etc.) and selling during the winter (November-February in most places) can be harder since not as many are excited to brave the elements to go look at houses.I don't have that problem in AZ, but have seen others get tripped up by the weather so try to avoid selling during the holidays if you can.If you have cash, use it.

But, I'm looking at buying multis in Chester and the Fan, so I might be a bit biased.I left out numerous costs in this back of the envelope calculation, but I think it gets the point across.