I’m thinking of selling to pull some money out, but know I need to do a 1031 exchange to avoid paying capital gains on just about the entire sale price.

Here's the numbers:Purchase: 136k, 5% down = $6800 + closing costs and prepaid insurance will be roughly 10k downARV: 175-180k, have to see how the neighborhood does in the next year, my realtor firmly believes 180.Rehab: 15-20k, all done by us.So after putting 20k into the property, that leaves roughly 24k of capital gains tax. 

I'm here to learn and see what I can do to gain schedule freedom.

Under this setup, if I decided to sell the residence after 2 years, does the Capital Gain Exclusion (Section 121) still apply?  

My rule is problems related to temperature, water or fire all get immediate attention.

I'm located here in Bethlehem too and there are a few meet-ups in the area that could help you gain some knowledge and make connections.Welcome again and don't hesitate to reach out directly with any questions

Especially paying attention to the cars.

@Chris Isaacson , Bank allows you to do that for internal efficiency, but you have to report gain to IRS. 

You can also consider doing cost seg and bonus depreciation on another deal you buy this year to offset the gains.

Currently aiming for a property with low rehab costs, but as I gain more experience I definitely want to become comfortable getting to the point of full gut rehabs and ground up too.