Deductions are a matter of legislative grace and the taxpayer bears the burden of proof, both of production and persuasion.

There are still down payment assistance options or portfolio products for lesser of a downpayment but your terms on those are worse. 

Complaining, or (overly) worrying, about these things is counter-productive. 

Pretty sure Launch, Sherpa, and Batch are the only reliable and legal ones nowadays.

One visionary comes up with the idea and creates an ingenious product, but later generations will always have the advantage of hindsight and trial-studies from which they can improve their design.It's very difficult to say where the whole space will go. 

Getting a Real Estate VA is one of the trends nowadays, but do you think it's still worth it? 

AS John points out, yes, we do have LOC products for investment properties in Texas.

He's out of Rochester, has lower limits for DSCR but also has a ton of options for loan products.

I have a kind of "secret empathy" for younger folks nowadays because they've been condition to be these impulsive, reactive hyper-drama organisms. 

We just saw few target properties go from active to contingent/pending status on MLS, it's hard to land on good cash-flow/turn-key property with low inventory nowadays.