Qualifying for multiple mortgages is getting harder and harder to do.

Once you have a conversation going it will be easier to get to the question about price.If you find that the competition is pretty stiff with the absentee owners (some get multiple offers every week) think about adding some names from one of the new motivated owner occupied lists.

@Eric Patrick Oden, you can include multiple contributors on your deals.

As for cash reserves, that can vary based on the age of the property, condition, location, etc...but I've always hear $10,000 per property (scales down per unit if you buy multiple) is a decent starting assumption.Flipping is active income (not bad for building wealth in the short term), buy/hold is more passive, and cash flow is great (playing the long game)...military installations often come with a decent amount of buy/hold opportunities due to the housing allowance service members receive.lower end is okay...if the neighborhood is.

Look up Duane gomer for classes in ca and interview Keller Williams 

I'm currently shifting some of my assets into small single family homes in a part of the country where real estate is still pretty cheap. Each house will have roughly 25k in equity. My concern is that it's a huge hass...

But if you ask me what is the most important to have when acquiring multiple rental properties with multiple tenants, I would say that the number one priority is having a very strong insurance policy structure as your first line of defense for any unexpected/extraordinary events.

., multiple site visits on an anonymous basis), apply analytical stress testing to pro forma financials and avoid certain categories of properties altogether (Senior Housing, Oil & Gas, etc) to ensure that all underlying properties held by the respective DSTs are prudent investments for folks who are not experts in making risk assessments for these larger operations. 

You can always develop your own, buy why not take what has already been used multiple times and has been legally tested.  

We end up with a quick sale and often multiple offers in this scenario.This has caused me to look outside of the local area for residential multifamily properties.