Assuming this is an 8 cap neighborhood you'd have a ~$420-450k value within a year (unless property taxes are crazy high) when leases would renew since it'd be valued as a commercial building with the office space.

If you need financial help, ask under the "Finance, Tax, and Legal" forum.

STR seems to have better tax benefits (in the right market) but is it worth it at a distance ???

(I REALLY can’t stand state income taxes.  

Where to get the most recent and accurate data for things like:Unemployment dataPopulation growthJob diversity and top employers in the areaVacancy rates (eg huduser.org)Property taxes and jnsurance costsI saw bp pro and reventure and a bunch of other websites provide some of this data, but i wonder how accurate and recent it is.

Some private lenders like the one I work with doesn't require appraisals on fix and flip/new construction loans and also doesn't require tax returns/W2s.

It is my understanding that the new owner will have the house at the cost basis of my purchase price, for calculating capital gains taxes or depreciation.For gift tax purposes for you - FMV.For capital gain tax purposes for the recipient - your original basis/purchase price 

Hard to produce cash flow or break even with that much debt, at that rate.House-hackers, however enjoy certain one time (non-scalable) advantages that should be taken advantage of in the early days: - They can assume pre-existing debt like VA and FHA Loans (rather than take it on Subject-To which is dramatically riskier).- They can rent by the room and self-manage to produce day 1 cash flow.- Many of these HCOL areas also have strict limitations on AirBnB or short-term rentals... that do not apply to owner-occupants - thus allowing for extreme cashflow potential for house-hackers.

Many months of costly vacancy, local market rent & resale deteriation, special assessments, property taxes and maintanance fees suggest a quick sale would have been the wise thing to do 2 years ago.

During escrow converted it to a Roth and paid the taxes.