I've listened to the podcast on and off for a few years and have a pretty solid high-level understanding of how deals are structured.

The house is in the same TMK with our primary house but two seperate dwellings and structures.

get an umbrella policy to protect yourself, see if you need a rental license in your municipality. an LLC is only for insulating you for liability and anonymity, it will not save you on taxes and you really dont need to worry about it with one property imo . you cant protect a single property from lawsuit, insurance is what covers you just make sure you’re up to code. insurance will always look for a way to get out of covering an incident.if you register, you’ll want to report the income. if you make less than expected after deducting costs, then it’s time to raise rent. you wont be able to reduce more to reduce other income streams since you're not a full time real estate investorin the future if you ever sell, because it’s a rental now you will owe capital gains on the property. philly is probably like ohio and not california with it’s YoY growth being tied to inflation. with that said your profit is mainly going to be the equity you build from your tenant paying your mortgage. the money earned monthly should be saved as youre doing in case you have a capex repair/replacement come in like HVAC, roofing, etci advise you pay for an hour to speak to a CPA to better your options.good luck

I have personally done both sides of things; ran PM biz grass-root's, and ran PM brokerage in a franchise system, a big BIG name one. 1 universal truth that stands in BOTH is your primary existence as a PM, franchisee or grass-root's, is that your a full-time "vanguard" of defending against the "WTF's" and in being a "Fire-Fighter" putting out the "fires" of the various "WTF's" that happen.     

I personally prefer flexibility but having structured amortization does provide discipline if principal reduction is an optimal outcome for you.  

My goal is to be financially free and ultimately leave my W2 through scaling rental properties to manage/invest full time.

Structural, or something else?

Why aren’t you using PropStream yourself to have full control?

It was great but after I had our son I had a hard time in the group because my priorities shifted from being work focused to full time mom mode. 

Usually HELOCs want your property to be finished...so if you have ANOTHER home, maybe that could work...but if not, then you would need a more structured mortgage.