We needed a family home and wanted to find a fixer upper to gain equity.

You'd need to wait months or years to pull out a good gain unless you do a stellar rehab.Any method of investing carries risk.

My goal is to find a -plex or handful of -plexes in my hometown in order to gain experience and just learn the ropes, and ultimately scale into the Springfield or maybe KC markets and beyond.

I love it too and I never thought about the screening aspect, however it's my assumption that most gainfully employed biz professionals will be good tenants (more or less). 

Very informative...just curious, where do you fit on the active-passive spectrum?

I've been enlightening myself by reading up on personal finance, passive incomes and now multi-family house hacking for the past year.

If so when you SELL the home you can deduct up to $250K each (husband and wife) from the gain of the home and NOT pay any taxes. 

Know your income & expenses (including hidden stuff like township fees).Note how much rehab it needs to gain the rents it deserves.Do some research with your Realtor and lender, to see what it will refi for after its occupied. it's generally 70% of ARV.

I have no experience in the real estate flipping and my job forces me to make this as a passive investment than an active one. 

Very intrigued with note investment (non-passively) and wanted to hear what experienced investors do when the RE market softens or drops.