So you'll knock out 1/2 of that by the time you come back to the land of the free.Then, once you're ready to buy something in Chicago, pull some equity out of your cash-flowing properties and use it as a down payment.In the meanwhile, learn as much as you can about the Chicago market; your idea is solid, but $1m just won't buy you much in the way of a 4plex (four flat in Chicagoese).

If I were looking specifically for a 2Br, that would be a big "knockout" factor in my mind.That high ceiling space costs a fortune to heat if any cold weather comes along and stays a while.

Roof costs say $8000 (depending on size, shape, type of shingles, etc.) and last 25 years (depending on weather, type of shingles, slope, etc.) ... that's $27/mo you need to put away in CapEx to eventually replace the roof ... now do that for all the systems in the property, add them all up, add some reasonable amount of margin, and you have a reasonable grass roots estimate of what your CapEx should be ... code it into excel with the approriate parameters such as square footage, number of water heaters, etc. and you can knock out a CapEx estimate for a specific property in a matter of minutes, without messing around with bogus rules of thumb like 50% rule or 10% of gross rent, or any other such thing that tries to relate things that are completely unrelated in order to shortcut around actual thought and analysis.Any calculator that you do not understand all of the inputs, outputs and assumptions that went into them are less than useless, and BPs are no exception ... therefore the best ones will be the ones you build yourself from the ground up and modify over time as you gain experience and find that some of your assumptions, inputs, and formulas need tweaking.  

@Jay HinrichsI was more saying I could buy a 100k property then knock out the mortgage quickly then repeat.

It was a very tough time and everything in my soul wanted me to knock out and beat these deadbeat tenants to a pulp.

Where's the panel, and do you have 3-4 open knock outs? 

I waited until 35 before beginning to knock out the bad.

@Brittany Sanders....knock out a couple a deals while joint venturing with an experienced investor.  

I'd like to knock out the exam before end of year if possible.

Here is a link to a fogger I used in the past. https://www.chewy.com/virbac-knockout-area-treatment-spray/dp/53854?