My first loans were at 9% .. 

I toured the property when they were home and they asked me how the living situation was gonna work, which I explained that my loan said that I had to live on the property for a year, and the tenant next door was on a year lease & he was month to month... so he was going to have to leave.

Is it hard money loans, angel investors, etc?

Your personal loan has a 5 year balloon period.  

So I did a 3-2-1 buydown and secured a 2.875% interest loan for the first year of the loan, and it will gradually go up a percent each year until it hits my rate of 5.875%!

Credit Unions are pretty great, as in my experience, commercial loan renewals tend to be automatic.

@James JeffersonHi James,To buy out the property you need to probably apply for a loan through any lender.  

I'm learning more about loans and such as I used the VA.

Meeting a 20% down payment to avoid PMI seems manageable, although would take a big chunk of my liquid net worth, and I prefer this route over using an FHA loan.

There are varying opinions on this but mine is: cheap never goes out of style.