Being facetious, but I bet that's not too far from the truth.

And yes... very sweet :-)In my mind, trying to find a place that's going to appreciate is a LOT harder and I would move from "investing" into "speculating"  There's nothing wrong with hedging your bet and doing your research and trying to make sure you're not going into an area that's *completely* going to tank, but I've found that when you start speculating on future prices, you start down the path of just what you described... one piece of information says this, another says that... and they're both at odds with each other. 

I purchased a single family rental property with cash a few years ago.  

I hope to start with a single-family or small multi-family home and work my way up from there. 

New to the site and new to real estate investing (although I just finished with The Book on Rental Property Investing).My uncle (age 57) and I (age 48) want to start investing in residential single-family real estate. 

Triplex financing is basically the same as single family -- valuations are based on comparative sales analysis.   

Single family rental, possibly duplex.

Also, I would consider trying to BRRR some single family homes if I found the right deals. 

And this won't just affect just landlords, the tax consequences will eventually flow right on to single family homeowners as well.

This is sort of a rough draft of my plans, I would either like to get a multi-family (nothing bigger than a quadplex) or single family 3beds at least and house hack them for cash flow.