My Main purpose would be to rent them out.

I means that's what churches do and I can't see another purpose for them wanting an apartment. 

That is the purpose of rent.

If you stay in your W2 to save up capital, do whatever you can to find joy in the job for however long you need to be there, and stay focused on the purpose it is serving you.Then when you do take the leap into investing full time, remember: if your dream doesn't scare you, it's not big enough.

Johnathan - thank you for the  outline and posts --Using a VA  loan is this a good move move as this will be  the only option that allows  zero down  payment --A  future future loan application for a new  primary home will likely be  affected  ...depending on  when you  buy the next property - any lender  will likely use your  schedule E  from tax returns to determine the  negative or  positive  rental income  you  will use for  qualifying purposes  ....also if you move out of one of the  4 units , you will  have  some additional income from this  unit that may be  counted - what are the  projected  rental income per unit  you are using in your estimations  ?

Not sure why you want people fudging that one when you restrict purchases to all cash.On a 7 year hold for the Boston suburbs I'd get:Rents: $2,800 x 3 x 0.5 x 84 = $352,800Appreciation of 5% for 7 years on $1M is $1,407,100 for a gain of $407,100Total: $759,900On the out of state I'd get:Rents: $1,200 x 11 x 0.5 x 84 = $554,400Appreciation of 2% on that hold would get $1,148,685 for a $148,685 gainTotal: $703,085So the pricey stuff wins by just under $57KBTW I did purposely pick the 2 set to be around 10 places so if you did allow financing it would be possible to more or less use the same cash.  

Dear all, We are looking into setting up a new bank account for any house/rental related income/expenses (we're first time owners of a multifamily property) . So far, we've been loyal customers with banks that don't h...

I know you didn’t elaborate a lot on sfh vs multifamily, but a lot of people/clients I know are interested in small multi family for this purpose (duplex/triplex/quad).

Best to sell to actiual home buyers.If you are dead set on selling to investors build purpose built multi unit rentals.

I did 75 to 100 flips a year in Portland market before I used the same capital to start a HML company.. and today we will will do close to 200 transactions.. funding for flippers of retail an rental purposes and build 30 to 40 new constructions during the course of the year..