Quote from @Nate McCarthy: Quote from @Tim Delaney: You have a lot going on there and I’m not sure I fully understood your thought process.

We often need to ask the right questions to help determine the best route for each individual.

In the process of analyzing deals, I reached out a property manager for his fees.

They’ve just been telling me it’s been processing with Underwriting for three months now.

If your current deposit already equals one month's rent, you can't request additional funds.Keep the lines of communication open with your tenants, explain the process clearly, and you'll avoid any misunderstandings.Good luck!

thanks for your time and help rent to retirement works directly with build to rent developers like us around the country once they are framed up. you are buying properties pretty much at market value but with a hand holding. you can work directly with a builder or directly with them. they are just an intermediary. they take 5% on what we make as a builder but have a large list of investors and a systemized approach to selling new builds. if you want to get a better deal I'd recommend directly contacting builders and building it yourself. fly to the market. spend 2 days, tour new builds, get a feeling for how it's going. if your builder isn't building multiple at a time then I wouldn't recommend working with them. rent to retirement is a well oiled and well run machine. they've had their ups and downs with dozens of transactions in florida but modified their process. they are well known and established and transparent. if you have a more specific market and feel confident in your ability to vet deals try it out. happy to talk more my info is in my signature. we work directly with them to sell new builds and no organization is perfect but I have good things to say about them as a builder and potential build to rent developer that sells build to rent triplexes and single family homes through them to end buyers in California like the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego 

However, we will likely need a property manager to assist with some facets of running this rental (since we would not live locally) and would primarily market it through platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO to start, (eventually setting up a direct booking process).Here's our question for those who have experience in STR's or who might be involved in a similar scenario: How challenging is it to meet the material participation hours needed to achieve active status?

Seems like there are a lot of individuals in this boat  -  especially in my sons line of work  - which is lighting and tech for special events and music tours.

Then you put another portion of your mortgage on the HELOC and repeat the process. 

I'm still in the process of growing my portfolio, but have heard others 1031 all their smaller properties into a larger building and have a property management company manage, OR, set up a seller financing deal with another buyer that gives you the cash flow you desire.