Would it be better to get a 4-plex (or similar) and waiting to get to buy a small apartment complex or going straight for it instead?

Are you purchasing complex properties?

@Brian Adams In your opinion, would it work for a passive investor in a syndication on an apartment complex, in exchange for the money invested receive the syndicator's portion of tax write offs for the project instead of return of capital?

Depending on the size of the apartment complex, an LLC could have negative financial benefits. 

I would love to build if I could but it just seems a bit complex for me.

I also should mention that it would be for a complex with weekly rentals.

I often say yes, submit my low bid, and later receive a letter saying it doesn't meet the reserve price.There's an auction held at a condo complex where I previously bought two at auction.

I recently cold-called the owner of a 7 unit complex who is interested in selling their property near me in Northern Michigan.

This is more complex because you are trying to find current contact information for the owners of property you find - usually from driving for dollars.

You would then have a revolving door of agents to try and constantly train depleting valuable time, money, resources.Instead a brokerages sets up a commission only system where the strong survive and thrive but the weak sales agents eek out a few sales at fat splits to the brokerage before leaving the business.Commercial is a lot more complex than residential.