I've seen too many people try to force a tax deduction or strategy but end up putting themselves in a worse position by picking a strategy that doesn't align with their goals.If you're done with real estate altogether there are a few recommendations.

- Commercial is still very much "behind the times" in that its a "hand shake" and "pick up the phone" kinda biz. 

pick a few - go there - drive around. 

Pick up a copy of the book Lend to Live: Earn Hassle-Free Passive Income in Real Estate with Private Money Lending.

Most HELOC's are based off prime and these are consumer based products (rate determined by margin which is fixed + prime).However the commercial departments in many of these banks or credit unions offer fixed lines on their commercial interest only products that can be based off different indexes like CMT (contact maturity treasury), SOFR (secured overnight financing rate), or other indexes that are less volatile than the prime which is directly linked to the fed funds rate + 3.00%.This is why the fed funds is at .50% right now and our prime is currently 3.50%.Just make sure to pick a product and index that works with your overall strategy because in between deals you'll be carrying the "equity," you used to buy a property on this line most likely.

We, thankfully, had a friend of a friend connect us to a delivery person, who directly picked up flooring and delivered to us, then we worked with flooring company to get a credit back on price.Or, we did Ikea cabinets, which came with both more pieces than we ordered, and not all the pieces we ordered.  

As an agent, have you picked a focus yet or considered specializing/nicheing into being an "investor friendly" agent targeting investors to work with (over generic homebuyers)?

this is a hard one. background services like identingly.com might not pick up any history.

Pick a market and begin to study it. 

You might be able to pick up a used program on Ebay or Craigslist.