For an overall sense of the deal, I treated it like a pure rental duplex.

You want investments throwing off that passive income so that you do the next transaction out of pure joy and only working with clients you want to.Having that freedom can be the ultimate satisfaction.You said 50 transactions is your goal in a year.

These folks are all accredited, it may be they are testing the waters w/you for the first time or timing in their lives (can't unwind a larger investment) so from a pure marketing standpoint, I would rather have more investors than less that grow w/me over time since they have proven for the most part that they are successful in their own lives to be accredited in the first place.  

Financing for an owner-occupied triplex or quad will be cheaper than a pure investment property. 

There is a dependent wife who writes a lot of articles on BP on the joys and perils of military REI.  

The tenants also get the monthly joy of taking money from big bad rich evil landlord.Added benefit: people who have regularly screwed the utilities will be denied, so the electric company is doing a bit of round-two screening for you.Imagine a bill for $105.

So pure logic is going to dictate the most desirable property and good deals are going to be "pending" in days.  

The third book is purely legal but is a must read to understand all legal requirements and hurdles.

Hey guys!So I had a goal to buy my first home by the end of this year. I spent early morning and late nights stalking Zillow, and, in early October, my diligence paid off and I found what would be my first property!- ...

A lot of this had to do with the pure volume of data - especially, when you are trying to predict or identify rare events.