Our first idea was to downsize their home to reduce all expenses and be mortgage free.

(I laugh, but it makes me sad at the same time)For house-hacking, here are general considerations-https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/considera...Personally, I've always stuck to the renting in CA and investing elsewhere idea.

We're thinking about targeting Manayunk in the Philly area but open to other ideas.  

I know that the point of real estate investing is to make money, but that's where my idea is different.

In your experience is this many rentals a bad idea?

I see one that I might be interested in, but I have no idea how a deal could be structured that wasn't 100% cash.  

Would it be a better idea for me to get into a small $50k house with a $400 mortgage, then take on a duplex like this to get positive cash flow?

Would love to connect with investors and share ideas.  

Also, the vote is next week and I plan on going and helping to vote it down, but I wanted to reach out and see if anyone had any ideas/resources to take to the meeting to help fight this?

The idea is to be able to predict what the value will be after the improvements so I can know how much cash I will get at the refinance.