Usually, your PM might do some light rehab/turnaround to get ready repairs, but in general you would hire a contractor yourself for a medium or bigger sized job. 

The neighborhood is desirable, so renting it wouldn't be difficult but it would be niche because of its size (4/3, office, dual living rooms, game room).

One issue is the challenge of qualifying, as conventional loans will have DTI requirements, income requirements, loan size limits, and loan amount limits that investors looking to scale a portfolio run into as soon as the financial freedom snowball starts rolling.

Expect to pay $5K-$10K per inspection depending on the building size.

Depending on the size we may partner with 1-2 people so that’s another aspect I am looking into as well.  

What kind of deal sizes are you working on?

Depending upon the size of the deal a hard money loan might eat 25% of the profit.

Some alternatives that I have considered is purchasing a single-family home, living in it for a year as a primary and then moving and renting it out, or looking for a single-family home with a decent-sized basement and converting that into a unit.

SFH deal with schools, jobs, paint color, yard size, etc.

Rather, and as Michael alluded to, they take a one-size fits all approach to these things.