I can not name any reasons which are worth the extra effort of investing there compared to sticking to a specific USA market.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend exploring as many sources as possible to get referrals AND cross-reference them to get as much accurate information as possible.Check out NARPM.com, BP’s Property Manager Finder (BiggerPockets: The Real Estate Investing Social Network), etc.Also, encourage you to learn from the mistakes of others - by reading posts here on BiggerPockets about owners not having their expectations met by their current Property Management Company.

The majority of our expertise comes from experience and having a specific book of real-estate clients who are involved in a wide variety of activities.

Please consider Syndirater.com as a source of reviewing and writing about Real Estate Syndications.

The source of the loan does not matter.So yes, if you borrowed $100k and used $50k to buy B and another $50k to buy C - you deduct half of the interest against B and the other half of the interest against C. 

However, there are some investors here who are having a lot of success finding cash-flowing deals through off-market sources. 

I love that you have specific goals for 2025 - I believe if we think it, write it, say it, and share it our goals are 10x more likely to come to fruition.Are you able to do option 2 and just house hack a 2-4 unit building and use a renovation loan which allows you to put down 3.5-5%I highly suggest getting to some local chicago meetup groups (we have an in person one on the 17th)...here is BPs list: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521-real-estate-events-...I also have a full list of the chicago meetups that I can share with you too if that'd be helpful.

would love to see a seller finance specific calculator that has a option for 1031 exchange from buyer bringing in down payment.  

The committees have never said they'll require a specific form of evidence to show that you've rented the place for at least a couple of nights.

There are a lot of good meetups for real estate investors in the area that would be good to grow your network and learn from others that are and have been in your shoes as a new investor, message me and I can share on some specific monthly meetups.Also sharing some multifamily data, this is Boston proper so it has an interesting trend compared to the rest of Massachusetts.