Lastly, house hacking lets you live in a multi-family property while renting out the other units to cover your mortgage.

Hey Jean, no hard rule to this but with properties I've sold, I always think it's best to communicate with your tenants to get ahead of any potential issues.1) Potential buyers will likely need to walk the property, so you'll have to schedule with your tenants.2) They might see the house on Zillow, Redfin etc and think "Am I going to get kicked out?

I have seen banks sell a house in Detroit for instance for 8k and broker charged 5k.. 

We are both residential appraisers working the NE Florida markets looking to transition over the LONG term to replacing our modest annual income through small/mighty single-family by buying in the path of progress where prices appear to be somewhat undervalued relative to long-term upside potential.

The only time I recommend an investor take a negative cashflow deal is if they have a high W-2 job and need to offset taxes, and /or they can afford to wait for a house to appreciate.

I like the idea of owning a house and having a larger pool of buyers that will value that asset differently in the future. 

I have improved cash-flow by buying some multi-family houses rather than single family.

House was $172k renting at $1550 a  month.

(Zillow data) I've been doing open houses for an hour twice a month, and have had 4 applications so far from people who went. 

Surrounded by mountains in a valley that naturally constricts growth there will continue to be a shortage of housing.