I was able to speak with a handyman who I've worked with in the past and he's going to go there to take pictures/ videos, get his POV/ assessment, and put tarps over the roof holes to the best of his ability.

Ideally I would like to buy a multi-family situation where my boys and I can live there as well as rent out part of it.

Ideally I would also like to find a BRRRR property, but they are few and far between here and often if you're not quick will get bid up quickly.

Ideally, go through and fix stuff before people move in.I do small jobs myself, not as much to save money, but also to get things fixed faster.

My ideal would be to have rent be roughly $2,500 a month or $2,000 a month.

Well I caught her cheating red-handed even got it on video.. afterwards when I get back home she messages me talking about please forgive me I'm sorry that she still wants to make the marriage work but I just went by there two hours later and the guy still there so how is that trying to make it work

Look on YouTube and you’ll see many videos on this subject.

I was able to find a management company in the area that could help but sounds like having someone on the property would ideal too so going to dig into that a bit more.

I'd want to be in towns with 50K people or more, ideally. 

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?