One of the main reasons I got into this industry is my passion for helping people and wanting to guide people into a good loan product for them based on their needs. 

There's no cheaper product- don't let the rates throw you, you'll save thousands with a HELOC. 

To the housing providers in Pomona ...how can we teach the Mayor & City Council of Pomona about the economics of and business fundamentals of providing our products to the market (housing)?

I’d like to buy vacant lots, tear-downs or single family properties with enough lot to print ADUs and do a mixture of rent, sell and owner finance the end product depending on the situation.

As you might know already, a lot of big corporations and wealthiest people of the US have moved to Miami area in the past 2 years as well as families who follow better lifestyle for their children's future and themselves. make sure you buy a somehow unique product (for ex; water view, flexible layout, high ceilings, building amenities etc). 2. 

But something just did not add up with those guys ( and they were AZ based and slick as all get out) But to easy to approve me just send 10k for due diligence. only somewhat related but BiggerPockets really needs to acknowledge a new category of lender that falls in the Non-QM space (any mortgage thats not qualifying under the Agency QM rules - including DSCR lenders but also many established non-bank lenders that focus on pretty standard mortgage products that are part of the established Secondary Market and Finance Infastructure). 

Then, products such as HELOC or 1031 exchange are not open to me as a foreigner so even though i have on paper $500k in equity I don't have a real way of tapping into it.Any ideas or suggestions what I can do now to keep growing would be much appreciated!

You're welcome to claim other things fall under that umbrella, but then we're just arguing about terminology which is not productive. 

We haven't had success buying a place to have as a STR yet, but when we do I'm going to try to make sure that only fragrance free products are used.

We were after a very specific product within a tight radius, so we were able to mail almost all the houses that met our criteria without breaking the bank.