Multifamily syndications for example could potentially double your capital every five years while greatly reducing your downside risk and providing an abundance of diversification.

In general with house-hacking I'll always prefer small multi-families because it bakes diversification and efficiency into the purchase, giving you slightly more levers to pull and security in the investment. 

Welcome Micaela, sounds like you are doing pretty well with taking all the right steps. if you’re looking to take a more passive role in your real estate and want the benefits of diversification there are funds available to accredited investors that are designed to allow investors the opportunity for ownership of institutional investment grade property that is occupied by regional, national, and Fortune 500 credited companies.

The perfect investment for me may be a horrible investment for my neighbor or you -- risk tolerance, expected IRR, control, diversification, etc all vary by individual preferences.

Having said that - I am a big fan of diversification as well - getting into multiple doors as quickly as possible - with 1 door, 1 vacancy = 100% of your cash flow - the same is not true if you have multiple doors (3-5, say). 

Depending on your goals items like; population growth, job growth, rent growth, job diversification are items that better help you understand a market's growth opportunity.

With us, that size portfolio is going to be more in the $10M range and many investors I speak too would rather do some diversification into other investments before they hit that number.  

Winston-Salem has also seen QOZ development and multifamily expansion and have begun to see larger job diversification throughout the metro.

A few good fundamentals when evaluating new markets are; job growth, rent growth, job diversification and population growth.

This allows the investor to invest in several properties for the price you would generally pay in one, significantly reducing their risk exposure thanks to diversification.