I've thought about contacting the owners of the rentals that are in poor shape as well, to see if they want to sell.On a side note, any chance they've been recently purchased by a developer?  

I am growing rapidly, and trying to develop lease renewal strategy.  

I think one of your first steps may be to try and talk to a local Civil or Surveyor.Too often I see many clients who look at a development opportunity and don't have any real understanding of the issues surrounding actually developing.

I just finished a major remodel and development in Austin so now we have time.

Many new developments coming up all starting at not less than 300K for the smallest of houses!

Tacoma houses in the 100k range typically need significant rehab to develop into long term low maintenance assets.

I would divide my money into three categories equally.1) Flips and Urban Townhome/Rowhome/Skinny Mini Development in hot areas and lowest priced areas, but on the development structure so you pay zero for the land and don't finance your soft costs.2) 1.5% to 2% Cash flow rental properties using BRRRR in B class areas.

I am even building a software tool that bridges my two passions...real estate and technology :)  The tool intelligently and automatically sources awesome deals for real estate investors and I would love my fellow BiggerPocketers to check it out because I am building it to help not only myself, but others too! 

If there are you might not attract quality tenants as you cannot control how other landlords operate around you which is why I want full control of a development.

I'll pass it along to the Developers and see how feasible it is to implement.